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REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 




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REMINISCENCES 
OE CANDIA 



BY 

WILSON PALMER 





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COPYRIGHT 1905 BY WILSON PALMER 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



PREFACE 

This little story of Candia, which was written some two 
years ago, I have at last consented to have pmblished in 
book form through the suggestion and advice of friends 
on whose judgment I rely. I hasten to acknowledge the 
encouraging aid given me by the Hon. Luther W. Em- 
erson, Sam Walter Foss, and Col. Oilman H. Tucker of 
New York, and by Alanson Palmer of Brooklyn and 
the Rev. Samuel C. Beane, D. D., of Lawrence, Mass., 
and by my many Candia friends. It should be borne in 
mind by the reader that in writing this story I have re- 
served to myself the license of the story-teller ; I have not 
attempted in these reminiscences to write a history of 
Candia, neither has it been my aim to write an essay on 
some literary subject. My only purpose has been to tell 
a simple, informal story of persons and things as I knew 
them in my native town, fifty years or more ago. If my 
friends enjoy reading these Keminiscences of the dear 
old town we all so greatly love as much as I have enjoyed 
writing them, then shall I feel more than repaid in tell- 
ing my story of Charmingfare. 

The Author. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Wilson Palmer Frontispiece 

The Old Home 2 ' 

Four Generations : Hon. Abraham Emerson, Daniel 
F. Emerson, Ruth Abbie Emerson Brown, and 

Child 50 

David Cross ....*.... 60 

Miss Mary B. Lane QQ 

A. Frank Patten 86 

John P. French 88 

Jesse W. Sargeant 90 

Mrs. Jesse W. Sargeant . . . . • • .92 

Frank D. Rowe 94 

Moses F. Emerson .98 

Luther W. Emerson 102 

James Henry Eaton 116 

Albert Palmer . . . 126 

William R. Patten 150 

Daniel Dana Patten 160 

Nathan B. Prescott 172 

James H. Fitts • • 180 

Mrs. James H. Fitts 182 

Mrs. Mary Jane Palmer Dolber 186 

Benjamin Franklin Brown 204 

Miss Ellen S. Eaton 208 



m 



Vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Rev. George Henry French 222 

Colonel and Mrs. John Frescott 234 

Sam Walter Foss 238 

Rev. Henry S. Kimball 260 

Joseph P. Dudley 278 

Frederick Smyth 284 

Henry E. Burnham 296 

Abraham Emerson 300 

A. J. Pitman 308 

George B. Brown • 310 

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Palmer 316 

Alfred Brown 318 

Alvin D. Dudley 330 

John G. Lane 336 

Moses E. Rowe 340 



KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 



EEMIKISCEN^CES OF CAKDIA 



" 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home ; 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
Which, sought through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

" An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain ; 
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ; 
The birds singing gayly that came at my call, 
Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all." 

Thus do I sing as I write this initial number of a series 
of letters under the heading " Reminiscences of Candia," 
for the many readers of " The Derry News," and especially 
for the readers of my home town. I have always felt 
grateful that I was born in Candia. Had my good father 
and mother consulted me in relation to my birthplace, I am 
sure I should have chosen Candia in preference to all other 
localities ; and I do not question that I should have selected 
the old paternal homestead at the junction of those two 
roads, with that far-away western view, where I first saw 
the light of day. It is both timely and loyal to my first 
love of family life, that I begin this reminiscent story of 
Candia by paying affectionate tribute to the home of my 
early youth. 

A now sainted father and mother stand in the very 
forefront, and form the centre around which all the sweet 
and sacred memories of my native town revolve. It is a 



2 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

precious delight that they now come to me as I write, so 
vividly that I seem to hear them speak again, and to feel 
once more their loving presence. And then that jolly group 
of brothers and sisters — and what a generous count they 
made ! Eleven in all ! In those good old days, the fathers 
and mothers welcomed the children with open arms. In 
that earlier time there were few, if any, childless homes in 
Candia, while as a matter of fact there was not a single 
home in my school district. No. 4, where the boys and 
girls were not to be found in goodly numbers. To refresh 
the memories of the older grown, and to afford a health- 
ful lesson to those just starting out in family life, I '11 take 
account of the youngsters of fifty years or more ago in my 
home neighborhood. In the family of the late Hon. Abra- 
ham Emerson there were eight children. In Levi Barker's 
home there were seven. In Samuel Wilson's household 
there were five. In Dea. Francis Patten's family there 
were five. In my home, as I have already stated, there 
were eleven of us, boys and girls. In Samuel Heath's fam- 
ily there were at least a round dozen boys and girls, all 
counted. Four children graced the home of the late Dea. 
French ; then there were three or four of the Dolbers, and 
a half dozen, more or less, of the Nortons, while at Jona- 
than Emerson's home there were seven, and three in the 
second family of Dolber's, and several boys and girls in 
the Dutton family — making in all a bright, promising 
army of sixty or more boys and girls in one school dis- 
trict. 

Now what was true at that time of family life in dis- 
trict No. 4, was largely true of every other school district 
in the town. In those days of a half- century ago, there 
was no home without its merry group of children, and 










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M H H O 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 3 

to-day, while there is many a household in Candia without 
even one little one, there can be no real home without the 
young budding life. The American people have much 
cause to blush for very shame, for their racial suicide. 
But it may be asked how was a livelihood secured with 
so many children to feed and clothe, and to educate ? 
The answer to this vital query is found in the fact that 
every boy and girl was early taught and required to do 
his and her part in providing for the family. In my own 
neighborhood there was n't a child of us ten years of age, 
who did n't know in a practical way what manual labor 
meant, and this too without any special manual training 
in the public schools. Why, there was hardly any depart- 
ment of legitimate labor with which we little folks were 
not familiar. 

Fifty years ago and more the braiding of palm leaf 
hats was one of the industries of Candia. I have not 
forgotten to this day that when a lad of not more than 
ten years I used to braid eight palm leaf hats a day, as 
my regular " stint." Albert, my next older brother, braided 
the same number, while Alanson, my next younger brother, 
braided six, making twenty-two hats each working day of 
the week. All this while the older brothers and sister were 
employed at some useful work. Then there was the shoe- 
making industry, which brought many a dollar into the 
homes of Candia. I know something of this branch of la- 
bor, for I wrought at the bench three or four years dur- 
ing the earlier portion of my life. Many a Candia boy of 
the earlier generation worked for six months of the year on 
the farm of a neighbor, or on that of some one living in 
an adjoining town, for eight or ten dollars a month, while 
many of the girls worked for a few months in each year 



4 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

in the mills at Manchester, or Nashua, or Lowell. Ask 
the Pattens, the Emersons, the Rowes, Jesse W. Sargeant 
and others, of this labor question in Candia, way back 
along the years, and they will tell you that the children 
in those days knew what it was to work, and to work hard. 
Every mother's son of us did something besides going to 
school, and playing baseball, and every mother's girl of 
us did something besides playing basket ball, and getting 
an education in the more fashionable schools of the coun- 
try. 

I thus dwell upon the home life of Candia as I remem- 
ber it, to show, as best I may, the fundamental fact that 
in God's plan the children must be the supplement of 
every home worthy the name ; and to show this additional 
fact, that the father and mother of moderate means may 
rear and educate a good-sized family of boys and girls, in 
spite of whatever may be said to the contrary by the so- 
called fashionable world. 

It is with peculiar pleasure that I recall the former home 
life of my native town. May the sweet memories of those 
dear old fathers and mothers never grow less ! Indeed, 
they never can grow less, for their names are immortal- 
ized in the homes they made for themselves and for their 
children. In my next letter I shall have something to say 
of a more personal character of these same fathers and 
mothers, and later on, of their children. 



II 



The fathers and mothers of Candia, a half-century ago, 
were men and women who were sensitively apprecia- 
tive of all that was just and right. Their word was as 
good as their bond. Their promise passed current wher- 
ever they were known. Of deep religious convictions, 
their lives conformed to the severest tests of doctrinal 
belief. With a burning hell always in sight, they made 
straight for the heaven above. In those earlier days the 
Westminster Catechism and Calvinism were accepted 
without a question. The stupendous faith of the Candia 
fathers and mothers fifty or more years ago, was quite 
sufficient to remove the mountain into the depths of the 
sea. They had little or no occasion to delay that they 
might reason out any declaration of Scripture, for they 
took the " Word " on faith and there the whole matter 
ended. For those good old fathers and mothers I have 
always had an added admiration, because they, without 
complaint, so persistently attempted to live up to the rigid 
religious belief of their day. They were willing to be 
damned, if need be, for the glory of God. I do wish, how- 
ever, they could have lived until this more fortunate day, 
when the love and mercy of God have more abundantly 
revealed themselves. The former generation in Candia 
was a church-going people. They kept the Sabbath in 
the strictest way. They prepared for this holiest day of 
the seven, during the later autumn and winter time, by 



6 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

holding prayer meetings at the homes of their neigh- 
bors. 

How well I remember those held so long ago in my own 
home neighborhood ! I now seem to hear again Dea. 
Coffin M. French, with my father and mother, and Mrs. 
Dea. Francis Patten, and Mrs. Abraham Emerson, with 
the younger voices singing : — 

" How shall the young secure their hearts 
And guard their lives from sin ? 
Thy word the choicest rules imparts 
To keep the conscience clean." 

And then those prayers — who can ever forget them ! 
Dea. Francis Patten's " O Lord, may we all make on the 
morrow a Sabbath day's journey towards heaven," comes 
to me now as audibly as when the Deacon offered up his 
earnest petition. And then Dea. French, the father of 
Dea. John P. French, would seldom if ever omit in his 
Saturday evening prayer the following : " May we be- 
come heirs of Thee and joint heirs with Jesus Christ to 
an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth 
not away." A. Frank Patten and his sisters, Mrs. John 
D. Colby and Mrs. Moses F. Emerson, well remember, I 
am sure, how their Grandfather Robie would interline 
his Saturday evening prayer with the Scriptural verse, 
" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and 
he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come 
buy wine and milk without money and without price." 
Abraham Emerson and his brother Jonathan and a few 
of the younger people always took part in these meetings, 
while the women, taking Paul's advice, kept silent with 
the exception of joining their voices in song. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 7 

I well remember that my father took an active part in 
these from-house-to-house prayer meetings, but singular 
as it may seem, and much to my regret, I am not able to 
recall anything that he said by way of prayer or exhorta- 
tion. I do remember, however, and most vividly too, and 
with exceeding pleasure and profit, his morning and even- 
ing prayer at the old home, and while it does not come 
back to me as a whole, still portions of it cling to me in 
spite of the many intervening years. Never shall I forget 
how at family devotions each morning and evening during 
the week, and during each week in the month, and during 
each month in the year, and year after year during his life- 
time, he would earnestly and pleadingly pray, " O Lord, 
bless all our surviving children whether present or absent : 
may their lives and health be precious in thy sight, and 
may they all be brought to love the blessed Saviour." 
Oh, those prayers of the dear old fathers and mothers of 
Candia have been, and are, a priceless inheritance to the 
children. 

I wonder who of my Candia readers cannot recall the 
manner and the tone of Dea. Shannon in prayer ? He had 
just enough of the sing-song in his voice as to make it 
delightfully agreeable to the ear — and then how he would 
pray after this fashion : " May thy Word, O Lord, have 
free course and be glorified, and may its glad tidings be 
borne to the 'e-ends of the airth'." 

Yes, the fathers and mothers of Candia were a church- 
going and praying people. They believed in answer to 
prayer, and so they prayed with that faith which lays hold 
of the promises. They did n't stop to question the Trinity. 
They not only believed, but knew to their own satisfac- 
tion, that Jesus Christ was infinitely more than a mere 



8 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

man. They all agreed on the fundamentals in religion, 
save baptism. Immersion and sprinkling stood wide apart, 
so that the battle between the two modes not infrequently 
waxed the hottest. Not one in those days could get to the 
communion table of the Calvinist unless he had been 
" dipped," while the other Evangelical Churches invited all 
to their table who were " in good and regular standing in 
sister churches." My father and mother were Calvinist 
Baptists, so I came early to believe that Christ was im- 
mersed in the river Jordan, "because there was much 
water," and I never suspected that it was an impossible 
feat to immerse those three thousand on the day of Pente- 
cost. 

But I am not to enter upon any discussion on the sub- 
ject of baptism, so long as the fundamental fact has to do, 
not with forms and ceremonies but with the individual life 
that has heart and soul. Naturally enough the severely 
religious life of the Candia fathers and mothers entered 
into and moulded the home life of the children. 

The boys and girls in those days read the Bible, either 
through choice or through compulsion. How infinitely dif- 
ferent now ! The children in these later days know little 
or nothing of Bible story and literature, to say nothing of 
its higher instruction. While I am an optimist from start 
to finish, and believe as Senator Hoar of Massachusetts 
puts it, " that to-day is better than yesterday, and that 
to-morrow will be better than to-day," yet in many ways 
it seems to me, that it would be the wiser plan were this 
present generation to lay hold upon, and then hold fast 
some of the fundamentals of years agone. The emphasized 
religious life of the Candia people I knew as a boy stands 
out so prominently in my memory of the past, that I 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 9 

shall next write of her churches of more than a half-cen- 
tury ago, and especially of the Church-on-the-Hill and of 
those periodic religious revivals when the whole town was 
under " conviction," and when to speak a cheerful word, 
and smile, was considered almost, if not quite, an unpar- 
donable sin. 



Ill 



In writing of the churches of Candia as I remember them 
when a boy, mention must be made — and this too some- 
what prominently — of the theology in those days. I do 
not care, however, long to dwell upon the religious belief 
of the earlier time, for there are many phases of it that 
are altogether repugnant and forbidding to this more en- 
lightened age. Fifty years ago the Evangelical Churches 
in New England, for the most part, were tightly held in 
the grip of an unrelenting bigotry, and this too in the 
most natural way. Then, it was a God of the most abso- 
lute justice whom the churches worshiped, while his infi- 
nite and ever-enduring love was kept in the background. 
It was God with an avenging sword. Man was, in those 
more primitive days, a poor worthless worm of the dust, 
without the least rightful claim to divine recogn.ition. 
The religious teachings of the centuries gone before had 
come down to the churches in the times of which I write. 
The theology of the fathers recognized no natural rela- 
tionship between the Creator and the created. Substan- 
tially, it was believed that God in his omnipotence and 
omniscence had created man and then disowned him. 
The mistake of those days, as I view it, is found in the 
unfortunate fact, that man was so minimized that he be- 
came merely a cipher in the infinite reckoning, while God 
was so magnified, and I say it reverently, that the dis- 
tance between the Infinite and the finite was made so far- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 11 

reaching that there was but little hope that man would 
ever come into the Infinite Presence, and so lay his hand 
in the hand of the loving Father. 

But in these later days the world has come into the 
clearer light and sunshine of God's all-pervading love. 
Now men and women know they are his children not by 
adoption, but by all the natural ties of a mutual relation- 
ship. Man is an essential factor in the perfecting of God's 
plan. Without him the infinite plan must fail. But it is 
foreordained and forewritten that God's word and work 
will not fail, so man is assured from the beginning that 
he is to count, and what is more, that he is worthy of 
being counted. This much I say of the former theology, 
by way of explanation of some things I have to say of the 
Candia churches of a half-century or more ago. I want 
to assure my readers thus early in this communication, 
that I have the profoundest respect and deepest love for 
the churches of my youth. This love is indeed intensified, 
when I appreciate how uncomplainingly the former gen- 
eration accepted the religious instruction and belief given 
it. They were martyrs many times over to what they 
took on faith in the religious world. They of the earlier 
times read the Bible not for a moment doubting its literal 
interpretation. 

Oh, those good old Christian fathers and mothers ! How 
delighted they must have been as they passed through the 
gates into the City, that God revealed himself to them 
there with all those attributes of love and mercy which 
are so characteristic of Deity ! 

My first church attendance in Candia was had at the 
Freewill Baptist church in Candia Village, and Elder 
Whitney is the first minister whom I remember. How 



12 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

vividly I recall those straight-back pews in which the 
boys and girls were not only expected but compelled to 
sit through all those long services, so painfully quiet, or 
otherwise that tithingman, Mr. Moore, was sure to rap for 
order among the boys who had dared to hunt for an easier 
position in their box-pew. It must not be forgotten that 
there were no cushioned seats in houses of worship in those 
days. Then one did not make his way heavenward on 
"flowery beds of ease." And then, those awfully long 
sermons Elder Whitney used to preach! It oftentimes 
seemed to me that he never, never would get to his " amen." 
I think the Elder must have been something of an anti- 
slavery man and that he let this fact be known to his 
hearers through his sermons. The late Cyrus Prescott, who 
was a born democrat, was an attendant in those days at 
the Village church and, if I am not mistaken, a member 
of the church. Never shall I forget what so impressed me 
at the time, how Mr. Prescott, one Sunday morning as 
Elder Whitney was gratuitously throwing into his regular 
sermon some of his anti-slavery love, left his pew, and 
made for the door and his home. It is said upon good 
authority that Mr. Prescott never afterward entered a 
church building. Be this as it may, Mr. Prescott was an 
excellent man, beloved by all who knew him, a man whose 
integrity and honor were unquestioned. I recall but a few 
of those who attended the Village church at that time, 
being but a mere boy of six or seven years of age. 

I am not likely, however, to forget Deacon Dudley's en- 
thusiastic and fervent " Glory to God," and his more 
than suggestive " amen," which brought many a man to 
his feet, wondering what had happened. I well remember 
Mr. Lang, father of Thomas Lang now of Maiden, Mass., 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 13 

and Mr. Jacob Morrill, that most devout of men — and 
Mr. Cheney, the miller, how he comes to me as I write ! 
Those exhortations of his, after Elder Whitney had shut 
his Bible and said " amen," while they were hardly classics, 
still they had about them and in them the zeal and fire 
of one in earnest in all things pertaining to the " kingdom." 
Then there was Mr. Prescott, the father of N. B. Prescott, 
who with his family was an attendant at this same church. 
The Richardsons I now recall — the late Gilman, father 
of Mrs. John Gate, and his brothers, Joseph and David. 
And the Taylors too — indeed, I am not sure that in 
good time the full list of those sturdy Christian men and 
women would not come back to me, who were Elder 
Whitney's parishioners. The Freewill Baptist church in 
Candia has always represented, as it does now, all that is 
best in morals and religion. 

Mr. Joseph Beane and his brother Gordon Beane of 
the " Island " were prominent members of the Village 
church. Joseph Beane was the father of " Sam " Beane, 
as he is familiarly known in Candia, but in Newburyport, 
Mass., and throughout New England he is the Rev. Sam- 
uel C. Beane, D. D. Sam (I must call him by the name 
I knew him by as a boy) somehow broke away from the 
more orthodox and Calvinistic belief of his father, and 
early announced his faith in Unitarianism. Of his youth 
and college life and successful ministry I shall have more 
to say later on. 

The ministers who followed Elder Whitney I but 
faintly remember, as at an early age I betook myself to 
the '* Church-on-the-Hill." My memories, however, of the 
Village church are altogether pleasant, save that I did 
often impatiently long for the " amen and amen." But in 



14 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

those days, a sermon less than one hour in length hardly- 
filled the bill. The pulpit was then heard for its " much 
speaking." It is somewhere told how a clergyman, in the 
days gone by, once talked for a half hour just previous to 
his sermon, and then said, " With these few preliminary 
remarks, I proceed to the discussion of my text." Oh, those 
*' first, secondly, thirdly," and so on to the " lastly " and 
" finally," were a test of Christian forbearance and endu- 
rance on the part of many a hearer. But they were happily 
survived, and fortunately good men and women came out 
of that almost interminable list of headings safe and 
sound — but oh, so tired ! 

It was on the afternoon of a spring day in the very 
early forties, that a man of graceful carriage was seen 
from my home approaching Deacon Francis Patten's 
house, when my mother said, " I think that is the new 
minister, the Rev. William Murdoch, who is to become 
the minister ' On-the-Hill.' " And she was right — it was 
Mr. Murdoch, fresh from his theological studies, of whom 
and his church I shall have something to say in the 
next chapter. 



IV 



The Rev. Mr. Murdock must have preached all the bet- 
ter sermon on that first Sunday morning of his pasto- 
rate in Candia, for having been a guest over the Sabbath 
of Deacon and Mrs. Francis Patten, for their home was 
always distinguished for its good cheer and abounding hos- 
pitality ; and I can easily imagine how Deacon and Mrs. 
Patten must have especially welcomed the new minister, 
for there is always an interest attaching to the coming of 
a young man fresh from his theological studies, to take 
charge of a church. All eyes are upon the new minister, 
and a thousand and one questions are eagerly asked con- 
cerning him. " Is he married? " is the first query on the 
list ; and then follow, " Is he attractive in his personal ap- 
pearance and manner, and is there a charm in his per- 
sonal conversation?" Mr. Murdock went to Candia sin- 
gle-handed and alone. Yet I do not remember that any 
of the Candia girls at that time lost their heads or their 
hearts over him. Still there might have been those who 
looked upon him as " a good catch," — most likely there 
were, for there were then, as now, those of the fair sex 
who did not reveal the language of their heart to a world 
not in love. 

Mr. Murdock was a good deal elegant in his personal 
presence. Of dignified mien, and graceful in every move- 
ment, he favorably impressed all whom he met. I can 
see him now as he walked up the right hand aisle of the 



16 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Church-on-the-Hill, and ascended with such grace and ease 
the steps leading to the pulpit. His movements, whether 
in the pulpit or out, described the curve and never the 
acute angle. 

I do not remember that I was at that first service under 
the ministry of Mr. Murdock ; but if I was, I have unfor- 
tunately forgotten the text from which he preached. If I 
had known then that I was to write this series of letters 
I am sure I would have been present, so as to have been 
able to report after so long a time that initial service of 
his pastorate of eleven years. 

Mr. Murdock went to his people in Candia filled to the 
brim with the emphasized instruction and doctrinal belief 
of all the orthodox theological schools of that day. With 
him, as with others of his profession, it was " Woe is me," 
if I preach not the word as laid down in the books. In 
those days the minister went armed with the wrath of an 
offended God ; so it became his duty to " cry aloud and 
spare not." Mr. Murdock's preaching was largely in keep- 
ing with the orthodox belief of the earlier day, only that 
it was underlined and intensified by that imp of darkness, 
the dyspepsia. True to his convictions, and honest in all 
his ministry, Mr. Murdock never softened or sugar-coated 
what seemed to him God's truth. No one ever heard him 
in his active ministry object to what seemed to him to be 
the fact, that God had foreordained from the foundation of 
the world some to be saved and others to be forever lost. 
Such was the belief of all orthodox churches, and it must 
be and was preached from all the pulpits. I never even 
suspected in my boyhood, under the religious instruction 
I received from the pulpit, that God loved man in what 
is termed his " natural state ; " neither did I suppose he 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 17 

loved the children. That Christ took them in his arms and 
blessed them, counted for little or nothing in face of the 
preaching of years ago. Just think of it ! Then, it was 
a good deal of a question whether an unbaptized infant 
could be saved. Oh, that horrid, repellent doctrine, 
coming down from the time when there were something 
like two hundred and fifty offenses against the law in 
England punishable with death ! " Justice, justice, jus- 
tice ! " was the religious war-cry in those days, and the only 
God known was a God of Justice. Mr. Murdock was only 
true to his teaching, and to the obligations laid upon him 
by the schools, in preaching and setting forth in an unmis- 
takable way the religious belief of that day. 

Those periodic revivals, as I remember them, were born 
of that oppressing and depressing theology of a half-cen- 
tury ago. Who would not become anxious, and dejectedly 
so, over his eternal welfare, believing that in his " natural 
state " he was to suffer through all the ages of eternity an 
excruciating punishment ? 

Under such a belief why should n't men and women come 
together frantically begging for an immediate salvation 
from the wrath to come ? While I would in no way under- 
estimate the honest efforts and purposes of those who begat 
and promoted those old-time revivals, still I am safe in 
saying that fortunate indeed is it, that the churches now 
have found a better and more reasonable way in reaching 
a sinner. The day of those spasmodic religious revivals 
has gone past, and manly, intelligent reason has come to 
take their place. 

That revival somewhere in the later forties under Mr. 
Murdock' s ministry, while unquestionably much good was 
the result, still its method and plan of operation come 



18 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

back upon me at times a hideous nightmare. The entire 
town of Candia, as I have already said in a previous letter, 
was during that revival, " under conviction." Oh, how well 
I remember those long, long days which were substantially 
without a ray of light ! Then, as a boy in my early teens, I 
felt as though walking among the graves. During all that 
"great revival," as it was called, I met no pleasant, cheer- 
ful face, I heard no encouraging, assuring word. To me 
all Candia was under eclipse. The heavens were darkened, 
the sun was dimmed, and the moon did not give her usual 
light. That revival gave shade and shadow to more than 
one I now have in mind, to all their religious life. By this 
I mean, there were those converted during that revival, 
and whose lives ever after were deeply and consistently 
religious, yet who never could quite rid themselves of that 
gloomy, half-doubting view of the maker-of-all-things, and 
of the " hereafter," a view born of the revival of which I 
write. I trust that no one of my Candia friends will mis- 
understand or misinterpret me. I know that good came 
out of that great revival under Mr. Murdock — and yet, as 
I have already said, the memory of it as a whole, comes 
back to me as a hideous nightmare. The Christian world 
to-day is worshiping a God who is the father of us all. 
Love has unfolded her wings, so that now she broods over 
every child of the human race. God loves his children 
outside of all religious revivals. The church now stands 
as an organization not only for the saved but for the 
sinner. The " creed " is no longer read to one seeking 
membership with the church. The most of the evangelical 
churches are not only ready but glad to admit the chil- 
dren to their membership without the so-called conversion 
and personal religious experience. Substantially, the only 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 19 

question now asked the candidate for admission to the 
church is, " Do you want to be good, and do you want our 
help?" And all this is just as it should be. Let the 
church be the home and instructor of the children. This 
is a delightful world, now that it has a loving God who 
cares for all his children. Now one does not have to wait 
for the revival of the olden time before he can come into 
the very presence of Deity — for in these more enlightened 
days he may come up into a Christian life as naturally as 
the bud becomes the flower in the genial sunlight. Life is 
now worth the living, for heaven in these days begins here 
on earth. But in spite of the teachings of that earlier 
day, my memories of the Church-on-the-Hill are precious 
legacies to me. Mr. Murdoch filled his mission faithfully 
and well. Devoted to his work, he had at heart the good 
of his people. How well I remember his pastoral calls — 
when he would ask of the father and mother down to the 
youngest of the children how it was with their souls ? And 
then came the prayer before leaving the house. But now 
pastoral visiting has entirely changed in its character, and 
for the better. The minister can now ride his wheel to the 
home of his parishioner and greet the family in an informal, 
hearty way with a " How are you all, and I am glad to see 
you." Now he talks with the folks about this world and 
its affairs, and a jolly good time is had whenever the 
minister comes. There has indeed been created for us all 
" a new heaven and a new earth." Men and women in this 
glad day are everywhere living under the gospel dispensa- 
tion. The Church-on-the-Hill has been as a wall round 
about Jerusalem, and Mr. Murdoch's name will ever be 
closely associated with its history. 

Its membership has uniformly been made up of sterling 



20 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

men and women, and what a long list of those who are 
answering the roll-call on the " other side " ! The Pattens, 
the Robies, the Emersons, the Rowes, the Duncans, the 
Fitzes, the Langfords and so on, a glorious company of 
the redeemed. In another letter I must speak of the little 
church or band of worshipers, on the South Road under 
the charge of Mr. Winslow, somewhere in the later years 
of 1840. Mr. Winslow was the devoutest and meekest of 
men, and he richly deserves recognition. Then will follow, 
in natural order, the public schools of Candia as they were 
years ago, when I shall have occasion to become very per- 
sonal, for I must and shall with no little pride mention, 
at some length, the names of many a bright boy and girl of 
the good old town who have gone out from her schools, 
and made his or her score in life's great play. 



The great religious revival in Candia, of which I wrote in 
my last letter, began under the ministry of Mr. Winslow 
and his little church on the South Road. Mr. Winslow was 
unlettered in the schools, and was without the advantages 
coming from theological training, if indeed such training 
and discipline can rightfully be termed advantages. Often- 
times when listening to the late Mr. Moody in the full 
prime and vigor of his years, I have thought that the 
clergyman who gets the nearest to his hearers is he who 
is not hampered and circumscribed by the dogmas and 
tenets of the schools. At any rate, Mr. Winslow in his 
own way and under the inspiration of a gospel without 
any side explanation or exegesis, came to his people with 
the simple " word," delivering his message as one who 
had been clothed upon from " on high." He drew to his 
little, unpretending church building, many from Candia 
and Auburn. I was present at the dedication of the house 
of worship, erected under the ministry of Rev. Thomas 
Reynolds, a structure costing not more than five hundred 
dollars. Elder Davis of Manchester preached the sermon, 
and were I to live however long, it would be quite im- 
possible for me to forget his text, which was the follow- 
ing: "And Jacob worshiped leaning on the top of his 
staff." 

How fitting a text for so inexpensive a building ! The 
thought made emphatic by Elder Davis was that a loving 



22 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

heart-worship was neither dependent upon time nor place ; 
that prayer offered by the wayside is as acceptable as 
that offered in the pulpit of the most costly church edifice ; 
and that one may worship as did Jacob, leaning on the 
top of his staff. Elder Davis was of an exceedingly ner- 
vous and impulsive make-up, so that he frequently said 
and did things which were in striking contrast to things 
said and done in and from the average pulpit. 

After the dedicatory sermon of the South Road church. 
Elder Davis managed the collection taken for the purpose 
of lessening the debt on the church building, and I well 
remember with what cute business tact he did it. As the 
hats were being passed for the offerings (then they had no 
long-handle contribution boxes), Elder Davis did n't cease 
even for a moment in urging his hearers to give, and to 
give liberally. " Be men and women," he said, " and look 
the hat straight in the face though you may not give a 
penny." " Remember, however, that you cannot in any 
way cheat the Lord. He will claim and have his own." 
'* While you may not give to-day what you should, the 
Lord will more than likely come around in the spring, 
and take some of your pet lambs, or one or two of your 
best calves." "You may be sure," the elder continued, 
" that the Lord will somehow get even with you who do 
not give." " Remember the poor widow and her mite." 

It was during a series of revivalistic meetings held at 
the village, that Elder Davis became interested in the sal- 
vation of all Candia, and particularly interested in the 
conversion of some of his immediate friends. At the time 
of which I write, the elder was the guest of a Mr. Fel- 
lows, who resided on what is known as the Duncan place. 
Mr. Fellows and Elder Davis were close friends and had 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 23 

been for years, so, naturally enough, Mr. Davis was inter- 
ested in the eternal welfare of Mr. Fellows, and this is 
why Elder Davis always kept his eye on Mr. Fellows 
when the invitation was given " to rise for prayers, and 
come forward to the anxious seats." It was on an evening 
following a day not satisfactorily manifest in good results, 
that Elder Davis, unusually persistent that a generous 
response should be made to the invitation to rise and come 
forward to the anxious seats, and seeing no apparent de- 
sire on the part of any one to come forward, and recog- 
nizing that his host and friend, Mr. Fellows, did not stir 
from his seat, exclaimed in an impulsive and disappointed 
moment, " Well, I have made up my mind that the people 
of Candia are bound to go to hell, and I am not sure that 
it is not the better plan to let them go." It was after a 
hard day's work in one of these meetings, that the elder, 
taking a hurried walk for exercise, passed by Deacon 
Dudley's store, when Joseph Dudley, now of Buffalo, 
New York, happening to see him almost on the run, said, 
" Elder, where are you going ? " "I am going to heaven," 
was the laconic and impatient reply. In answer to which 
Joseph Dudley said, " Well, elder, supper is nearly ready, 
so why go before tea ? Can't you delay a little ? " 

An earnest, pushing, impulsive Christian man. Elder 
Davis was one of those men who " take the kingdom of 
heaven by violence." Pardon this digression, if digression 
it be, as I was anxious to introduce to the reader the 
minister who saw the happy relationship between Jacob 
worshiping on the top of the staff, and the little church 
on Candia South Road, as it was under Mr. Winslow's 
ministry. There are those, I am sure, who will recall how 
Mr. Winslow would frequently open his morning worship 



24 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

by saying in the meekest way, " Brothers and sisters, let 
us open these services by singing : — 

" * Jesus died on Calvary's mountain, 
Long time ago ; 
And salvation's flowing fountain 
Like rivers did flow.' " 

Mr. Winslow's whole manner of life was in keeping 
with his teaching. I frequently attended his evening meet- 
ings. By taking a short cut across field and pasture, and 
through a bit of the most attractive wood, the distance 
was made near to Mr. Winslow's church. Of those at- 
tending these meetings were some of the young people 
and older grown from my own neighborhood, the Palmers, 
(the late Stephen Palmer's family), and Dearborn Eaton's 
children, and the late Governor Smyth's brother, all from 
Auburn ; and then f ?*om other localities both in town and 
from neighboring towns there were representatives of the 
people present. Mr. Winslow was a minister whom the 
people gladly heard, and he was the means of accomplishing 
much good in Candia. Thomas Reynolds had charge at 
one time of the South Road church. Mr. Reynolds was a 
man well and favorably known in his home town. His 
vocabulary was full to the brim, so he was never at a loss 
for words when in the pulpit. How vividly I remember 
his prayers ! When on his knees, he seemed to have an 
added power in language. 

I shall never forget how Mr. Reynolds, in a sermon he 
preached for Mr. Winslow, defined the sinner's hope in 
contrast to that of the Christian. The climax to his de- 
finition was, that " the sinner's hope is like the spider's 
web — you put your hand where it is, and it is n't there." 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 25 

Mr. Moses Varnum, who occupied a seat near the pulpit, 
was so amused at Mr. Reynolds' definition, and with his 
imaginary grasp at the supposed spider's web, that he not 
only smiled, but laughed outright, while there was no little 
smiling on the back seats. Mr. Reynolds was a man of 
much more than ordinary ability, and had he had the cul- 
ture of the schools, his rank would have been among the 
first in any department of life. Of great physical activity, 
he was seldom or never at rest. His nature impelled him 
to be constantly on the move, and he moved at a two- 
forty speed. 

It is a well authenticated fact that Mr. Reynolds, when 
in his prime, started one June morning after the sun was 
up, from Cambridge, Mass., and made his way on foot to 
his then home, a little below Candia Corner, arriving there 
at so early an hour that he ate his supper with his family 
before sundown, making the entire distance of fifty miles or 
thereabouts between sunrise and sunset, with lots of time 
to spare. Thomas Reynolds was a man whom President 
Roosevelt would have admired, because he did things with 
a vim. His life was a strenuous life, and what he did he 
did with all his soul, mind, might, and strength. 

I must make prominent mention of the Chester-Borough 
church, for not a few of the Candia people attended its wor- 
ship. I was at the dedication of the Borough church in 1852. 
This church has always had an earnest band of workers. 
There were the Smiths, the Underbills, the Southwicks, 
the Edwards, the Moores, and a long list of others who 
labored zealously in the promotion of morals and religion. 
I am glad to learn of its continued success. Then there 
was the church at Candia Corner organized more than a 
half-century ago. It used to be facetiously said, that for 



26 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

one to gain admission to this church he must be not only 
a good Christian, but a good Democrat. Be this as it may, 
the Methodist church at the Corner accomplished much 
good during its comparatively short life. Its life, however, 
only went out to be found again the increment of other 
churches in the town. The church at East Candia of 
more recent date deserves honorable mention, for it has 
done and is doing a positive work in all that is best in 
the religious world. 

The churches of the olden time in Candia, as now, uni- 
formly had for their object the highest interests of both 
the individual and the community. In spite of however 
many differences in method, the end sought has been and 
is the same with all of them. 

Their past has been rich in results, and now at the be- 
ginning of the twentieth century a more opulent future 
awaits them. God bless the memory of the churches of 
my native town of so many years ago, and may He abun- 
dantly bless her churches of to-day. The churches of Can- 
dia have always been strongly backed and assisted by the 
educational influences of her public schools, of which I 
shall write with a vivid and peculiar delight in letters 
which are to follow — so hunt up your blue covered spell- 
ing-book and Lindley Murray's grammar, and we Candia 
boys and girls of the days of auld lang syne will have a 
jolly review time in the " deestrict " school. 



VI 



In writing of the schools in Candia as they were in the 
long while ago, care must be had that no injustice is done 
her schools of later date. I am quite aware that it is one 
of the most natural things in the world to magnify that 
which has ceased longer to be a part of real, actual life, 
and has become simply or largely a memory. All this 
comes from the tribute that is everywhere paid the past. 
Although the schools in Candia of fifty and sixty years 
ago have long since been " dismissed," and many of the 
teachers and pupils have gone " home " to spend that 
happy vacation which shall never end, yet there are those 
who still live in a most vital and effective way, who re- 
ceived their first lessons in the old district schools of 
Charmingfare. The " little red schoolhouse " will live on 
indefinitely in song and in story, and what is more and 
better, it will continue to be, from what it has accomplished 
in the past, an incentive and an inspiration to all the fu- 
ture. 

The little country school is the poor man's college. Its 
doors are open to all alike. Here the poor and the rich 
meet together. It shows no favoritism. It is the mother 
of all the higher educational institutions of learning. It 
is the chief corner stone of this free American republic. 
I feel like making my lowest bow whenever I pass the 
country schoolhouse. And so it is that I retrace my steps 
to the schools of my native town as they were in my boy- 



28 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

hood, with all that affection and love which must neces- 
sarily exist between the child and the aU-nourishing mother. 
In refreshing the memory of my Candia readers of the 
schools of the olden time, I can do no other than make 
the school in district No. 4 my starting point, for there 
it was that I was taught my alphabet by the « penknife 
system," and in spite of the so-called objective word system, 
or phonic method which so largely prevails to-day, I was 
taught my alphabet in that old-fashioned way so success- 
fully, that I have never failed to recognize at first sight 
any one of the twenty-six letters of the English language. 
Candia has always taken a just pride in her schools, and 
especially is this true concerning her schools of so many 
years ago. In those earlier times the town had fourteen 
school districts, each having a full quota of children. In 
those days there was no schoolhouse in Candia with the 
blinds closed and the doors locked for lack of boys and 
girls. Then, there was a full roll-call. I am quite sure 
that in my day, there must have been during the winter 
season, an average of at least forty pupils in district No. 
4, while in some of the other schools the average was even 
larger. Then, the school material was abundant, so that 
" keeping school " in the days of the fathers meant " busi- 
ness." Now in district No. 4 the schoolhouse has been 
closed for the greater portion of the time for several years 
for the want of a sufficient number of boys and girls to 
make up a working quorum, and the same is true of sev- 
eral other school districts in the town, and equally is this 
true of towns adjoining Candia. Pardon me for this di- 
gression, for I am to write of the schools in Candia as 
they were, and not as they are. How at this very moment 
is my memory flooded with pleasant remembrances of 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 29 

those who were schoolmates of mine, and of those teachers 
whose faces and voices I now recall, as though it were but 
yesterday I was a pupil in school ! Before writing some- 
what definitely and at length of those bright happy boys 
and girls, and of those teachers who will ever live in the 
memory of their pupils, I must say something concerning 
the curriculum of studies in those days, and a word con- 
cerning methods of instruction. In the first place, there 
was beyond the three R's taught no prescribed course of 
study mapped out by a well-nigh omniscient Board of Ed- 
ucation, and in the second place there was none of the 
so-called ranking system, and class promotion at stated 
periods in the schools. In the times of which I write, the 
individuality of the pupil was preserved and kept intact 
in every instance. In. that earlier day the "machine " had 
not been introduced into school work. Then there was 
no hopper in the educational world, into which the, pupil 
was ruthlessly hurled, and ground out at the end of the 
school year, some other than himself. Then, the bright 
pupil had all the way to himself, never being held back 
or in any way delayed by the dull, plodding boy who was 
compelled to make his way slowly. It was then " go as you 
please," the only condition being that you were able to 
"go." In that more primitive day and way of teaching, 
it was face to face with the individual pupil and teacher. 
The teacher literally breathed upon the pupil, so that he 
caught something of the life of his instructor. 

The older men and women in Candia (I say " older men 
and women," when, as a matter of fact, we are still boys 
and girls, for we are bound not to grow old) will bear me 
out in the statement, that the pupils in the schools of 
Candia a half-century or more ago were in no way re- 



30 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

stricted or delayed in their studies by class requirements. 
Individual promotion and advancement were in order at 
any time. Then, the boy or girl was permitted, even en- 
couraged, to come in on the " home stretch " in the quick- 
est possible time, without any reference to his running 
mate. The brightest pupil took the pole and made the 
field. 

In the district schools of the forties and the fifties of 
the last century, special attention was given to arithme- 
tic, reading, and penmanship, the very groundwork of any 
and all education that will stand the test. And then came 
those higher studies. In my own school district Lindley 
Murray's grammar was studied with an enthusiastic zeal. 
That " class in parsing," who of the boys and girls can ever 
forget it ? There was n't a pupil in school No. 4 above 
ten years of age who couldn't tell a transitive verb on 
sight,, and never did he mistake the relationship of the 
preposition. 

Language was one of the strongholds of the Candia 
schools in the days of " auld lang syne." The late Eev. 
John D. Emerson began the study of Latin in school 
No. 4, under John Clement, then a senior at Dartmouth 
College. Mr. Clement was the son of the late Rev. Dr. 
Clement of Chester. We shall have more to say of the 
son in a subsequent letter. As a matter of fact there were 
taught in the earlier schools of the town of Candia, many 
of the higher, or at least some of the higher studies which 
are to-day taught in our more advanced institutions of learn- 
ing. Now, when it is remembered that at most there were 
then but twenty-four weeks of school during the entire 
year, and that many of the boys and girls could only attend 
school during the winter season, one may conclude for a 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 31 

certainty, that the Candia boys and girls in the former 
days were a good deal in earnest in all that pertained to 
school work. They loved learning for learning's sake. 
They did not study for a ranking card, to be taken home 
at the end of each month to be duly signed by one or both 
parents. The children then did not go to school to be 
educated by the pouring-in process. They went, not to be 
crammed and stuffed, they were to be developed from the 
inside. They believed in the Platonic method of educa- 
tion, and invariably worked on that plan. They builded 
from the inside and never upon the outside. I should fail 
in a large way to define in all its parts the old district 
school of Candia, were I to leave out of this story those 
half days set apart for " composition " and " declamation." 
" Advance then, ye future generations. We bid you 
welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of 
New England. We greet your accession to the great in- 
heritance which we have enjoyed." All comes back to me 
as vividly as the day I declaimed these immortal words of 
the " Immortal Daniel " upon that six by eight platform 
in school No. 4. I can hear the Hon. Luther W. Emerson 
of Brooklyn, a Candia boy better known as " Lute " in the 
home town, declaiming with youthful enthusiasm — 

" Sing for the oak tree, 
The monarch of the wood," 

as clearly as when the old schoolroom echoed and reechoed 
with his voice. While the boys spoke with manly pride their 
" pieces," the girls read their compositions in voices that 
captured both ears of every boy in school. What I have 
written of the school in my own home neighborhood as it 
was in the years gone by, is as true of all the schools in 



32 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Candia at that time. They were the pride and boast of 
the fathers and mothers. May my memory of them never 
grow less ! The truth is the district schools in Candia way 
back in the almanacs were made up of the brightest boys 
and girls, and I must add the prettiest girls, to be found, 
hunt where you might the wide world o'er. How well, and 
with what ever-increasing love, I call to memory the old 
red schoolhouse in the home district! And those boys 
and girls, especially the girls ! More than one Candia boy 
who ranks in age with myself, has sung more than once 
with Whittier: — 

" Long years ago a winter sun 
Shone over it at setting ; 
Lit up its western window-panes 
And low eaves' icy fretting. 

" It touched the tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes full of grieving, 
Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

" For near her stood the little boy 
Her childish favor singled ; 
His cap pulled low upon a face 

Where pride and shame were mingled. 



*' He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
The soft hand's light caressing. 
And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 

" * I am sorry that I spelt the word : 
I hate to go above you. 
Because — the brown eyes lower fell 
Because, you see, I love you ! " 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 33 

Oh, those district schools of my good, good old town in 
the good old times ! Well, I have lots more to say of 
them, not forgetting the High School, and the " examina- 
tion day," and the dignified and wise committee men, and 
those teachers, blessed be their memory forevermore, and 
last, but not least, the boys and girls. So make ready to 
answer to your names, whether here or on " the other 
shore," for all of us are still in school, though in different 
rooms. 



VII 

With an experience of nearly twenty-five years in the 
public schools as teacher and superintendent, there have 
never come under my instruction brighter and more per- 
sistent pupils than those in the district schools of Candia 
a half -century ago. 

The boys and girls in those earlier days appreciated to 
the full, the six months of school had in the year. They 
pursued their studies with a zest. Instead of a definite 
and unyielding course of study written out by a board of 
education, each child was allowed to select his and her 
own studies within certain prescribed limits. As a matter 
of course, the three R's were to be taught in every indi- 
vidual instance ; but aside from these fundamentals, the 
course of study was largely elective. And so it was that 
the individual preference of the pupil was consulted. The 
truth is, the boys and girls years ago started out as whole 
numbers in their school work. In those days the fractional 
process of reducing the children to the same denomination 
in order that they might be classified in the same grade, 
was absolutely unknown. John was required to lose no- 
thing of his individuality and ability to acquire, and Wil- 
liam was required to lose nothing of his, in order that the 
two might jog along together. Each boy and girl was 
counted in the district schools of Candia in the olden 
time as a unit, and they were taught as such. Then the 
pupils played a lone hand in their studies, the work of the 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 35 

teacher being largely to see that the way was kept clear 
for each pupil to advance as rapidly as he might. 

In those unclassified schools of Candia in the times of 
which I write, the thoroughness and efficiency evinced in 
the studies taught, was made evident in a pronounced way, 
and the instruction was always made intelligible. I am quite 
aware that I am on delicate ground when speaking of the 
old district school in so positive and favorable a way, 
so that it may seem to some that I am criticising our 
more modern methods of instruction and much of the 
subject matter now taught. Well, I may as well confess 
now as later on, what seems to me the fact, that much of 
our boasted system in the educational world compares un- 
favorably with the simpler methods of long ago. So much 
is required of the pupil in these days of feverish haste in 
the schools that he has n't the time to do his work thor- 
oughly and well. I know this is an unpopular statement 
to make, but what are the facts ? Take the subject of 
reading as now taught by the word and phonic method 
under some professed elocutionist ! It is patent to every- 
body and everywhere, that better readers were turned out 
of the common district school fifty years ago, than are 
graduated from our higher institutions of learning at the 
present time. The boys and girls are to-day reading for 
the most part with partially closed lips. So far as my 
observation goes, the pupils in our public schools do but 
little with their reading matter than mouth their words, 
or, what is worse, swallow their voices outright. 

In a letter received from a friend but a day or two ago, 
distinguished as a teacher of elocution, the writer says, "I've 
been out to my class both morning and afternoon, and this 
drilling in big halls, and nagging the girls to throw forward 



36 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

their voices makes me a wreck physically and mentally too." 
And mind you these girls are those who have been taught 
in the public schools. 

I am safe in saying that not one clergyman in ten, either 
in city or in country pulpit, is readily heard or under- 
stood by his entire congregation, and all this through an 
imperfect enunciation. It isn't volume of voice that is 
wanting so much as it is a clear, distinct, and well-defined 
pronunciation. No one was ever at a loss to catch each 
word as it fell from the lips of the late Priest Burnham of 
Pembroke, neither did one have to put his right hand to 
his right ear as he listened to the late Dr. Nathan Lord, 
so many years President of Dartmouth College, or to the 
late Father Taylor of Boston. I mention this trio of illus- 
trious men as representatives of that class of men who 
were taught how to read intelligibly in the country dis- 
trict school. 

With what delight does one sit under the preaching of 
the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, not alone for the reason 
that he has something to say, but that he says it in that 
clear, enunciated way, that every word he utters is easily 
heard. It was only the other evening that I heard a half- 
dozen eminent clergymen speak in Tremont Temple, Bos- 
ton, and among all those D. D.'s Edward Everett Hale 
was the only one who made himself readily understood 
through a voice that had been educated in the old-fash- 
ioned way. So we repeat in italics that reading was by far 
more successfully taught fifty and more years ago than it 
is to-day. How well and with what satisfaction I remember 
the manner in which reading was taught in the schools of 
Candia when I was a boy I Those daily drills the boys and 
girls then received in the second class reader, in Porter's 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 37 

rhetorical reader, and in the American Fifth Reader, who 
can ever forget them ! 

" You are old, Father William, 
The young man cried, 
The few locks that are left you are grey." 

And then who in Candia whose birthday dates back 

to the thirties and forties in the past century does not 

easily recall that oft-repeated reading lesson beginning as 

follows : — 

" Chained in the market place 
He stood, a man of giant frame." 

And so on. The reading lessons in the old country school 
were made drill exercises, and they were dwelt upon until 
the voice had received its lesson. 

Talk about voice culture in the schools of to-day as 
much as you will ; it is in no way up to that culture of 
the voice had in the more primitive schools. Now what 
is true of reading as taught in the district school of so 
many years ago, is very largely true of all the studies 
taught at that time. ' 

The educational world is to-day having its fads in school 
work. In too many instances it is paying more attention 
to the ornamental than to the fundamental. By its system 
of monthly card reporting made up from the daily record 
of the pupil, and by that more intricate system of cipher- 
ing out the value of the pupil, much time is being worse 
than lost in school-teaching and in school-management. 
The simplest way of giving instruction is invariably the 
best way. An education without frills is uniformly the 
best education. There has been, there can be, no improve- 
ment on the olden time method of teaching the multipli- 



38 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

cation table ; and I doubt very much if there is any better 
way of teaching the English alphabet than by having the 
pupil learn his a, b, c, in the old-fashioned way. At any 
rate, this simple way of doing things in the district schools 
of my native town a half-century ago was before and 
above all others, and under it I shall show that the boys 
and girls, to use a slang phrase, somehow " got there." 

Candia must have been unusually fortunate in her long 
list of teachers in the years that have gone into history. 
They come back to me now having about them all the 
glow and enthusiasm of youth — and especially is this true 
of her female teachers, some of whom were distinguished 
for their personal charms and beauty, and of whom it will 
be a delightful pleasure to write. When I shall have 
written of the Candia High School as it was, and of that 
never-to-be-forgotten lyceum, then I shall take exceeding 
pleasure in calling the roll of both teachers and pupils as 
I knew them in the schools of Candia way back in the 
years gone by. 



VIII 

Before writing of the Candia High School and of that 
Wednesday evening lyceum, so distinguished in its day, I 
gladly pay loving tribute to the faithful and efficient band 
of teachers in the district schools of the town in the years 
gone past. 

There comes first and foremost to my call, Miss Emily 
Lane, as she was then known in district No. 4, more widely 
known however, in subsequent years, as the brilliant and 
accomplished wife of the late Governor Frederick Smyth 
of New Hampshire. 

Mrs. Smyth was a young lady of attractive personal 
beauty and grace, and charming in all her manner of say- 
ing and doing. There was no pupil, neither was there any 
home in my school neighborhood which did not love her. 
And I may safely add, that every mother's son of us, then 
a pupil of Mrs. Smyth's instruction, not only loved her in 
the way in which the term " love " is usually employed, but 
we loved her in that sweet, old-fashioned manner where 
Cupid all-winged and all-armed with his darts, lighted 
upon each one of us boys, while he sent his arrows thick 
and fast into each boyish heart. 

I well recall after so many years, how uncomfortably 
jealous we boys became, whenever Frederick Smyth, the 
then future governor of his state, rode over from Man- 
chester to the little red schoolhouse, to see Miss Lane. 
Although under ten years of age, there was not a boy of 



40 EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

us who did not well understand that Frederick Smyth was 
bound to win and take to himself the fairest daughter of 
all the fair daughters of Charmingfare ; and though jeal- 
ous as we were, there was no one of us who did not com- 
mend the excellent judgment shown by Frederick Smyth 
in his great love for Emily Lane, and there was no one of 
us boys who did not, in his own heart of hearts, congratu- 
late him in the sweet return that Miss Lane gave him for 
that love. However many may have been the brilliant 
achievements of Governor Smyth in his public and offi- 
cial life, the most brilliant achievement of them all was 
the winning of the heart and hand of Emily Lane. 

Now the point I wish to make is this, — that in the edu- 
cation of the children all that constitutes the sweet and 
beautiful is or should be considered of the first importance 
in the life of a child. I can see at this moment, as vividly 
as I did in 1841 and '42, Emily Lane, in that neat-fitting 
print, fairer in face and form than were those never-to- 
be-forgotten June days way back in the calendar. So it is 
that I give emphasis to the fact that the first requisite 
that should be required of the teacher is, that he should 
make himself personally attractive, so far as this may be, 
to the children. The teacher, whether he will or not, is the 
first object lesson the pupil ever receives in school. And 
in addition to all this, love should head the programme of 
studies in the public schools. Teach the children in early 
life that love, a real deep love, is the greatest and most 
desirable of all things in the world. Emphasize to them 
the fact that the term " love " is a word that may be spoken 
in the daytime, and that it may be rightfully discussed in 
presence of father and mother, and, what is more, with the 
whole world within hearing distance. To love is a divine 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 41 

attribute of heart and soul, and it should be made the 
sweet accompaniment of all school work. It was made so 
under the loving instruction and genial companionship of 
Mrs. Governor Frederick Smyth. Then there was Sarah 
Eaton, who afterward became Mrs. David Clough of Man- 
chester, N. H. How well and pleasantly she is remembered 
by everybody in Candia, and especially by the older-grown 
in my home district. Mrs. Clough taught for several win- 
ters in school district No. 4, and was greatly beloved by 
all her pu^jils. Her cheery voice comes back to me now, as 
I write, and I hear again her joyous and ringing laughter. 
Mrs. Clough was an optimist. She looked upon the bright, 
promising side of everything. She believed in the best. She 
came near to her pupils, because she confided in them and 
loved them, and they in turn confided in her and loved her. 
What she said always passed current with her pupils. 
During one of the winters of her teaching in district No. 
4 was the time in which the Miller doctrine concernins: 
" the end of the world " was at its height. It so happened 
that the late Nathaniel Robie, a resident then of my neigh- 
borhood, returned on one of those winter days just as school 
was dismissed for the noontime hour, from Lowell, Mass., 
where he had been to visit a Miss Moore, who subsequently 
became his wife. Well, Mr. Robie, fortunately or otherwise, 
brought up with him from Lowell some printed slips an- 
nouncing that the world would be destroyed at precisely 
two o'clock that very afternoon by three successive shocks 
of an earthquake. One of these printed slips somehow fell 
into the hands of the pupils, and for a time there was in- 
tense excitement and no little fear among the boys and 
girls, for it was a question of supreme importance whether 
they were to go up or down. 



42 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

I well remember, and I trust I am telling no tale out 
of school in relating the incident, how that Deacon John 
P. French began what I supposed a farewell note to his 
father, the late Deacon Cofhn M. French. I can see now 
the very seat he occupied as he began his good-by to his 
father. But fortunately his father came along as his son 
Deacon John P. was writing, so John, throwing aside his 
pencil, went out and saw his father, when the father 
quieted the fears of the boy. It is possible that Deacon 
John P. French may have forgotten this startling experi- 
ence of his early life — be this as it may, it is as I have 
related it. It is, however, a credit to Deacon John French, 
the son, that he kept his wits about him so intact in such 
a trying hour, that he was able to state the imminent peril 
of all terrestrial things to his father, and in face of all 
this, bid him good-by. The most of us boys and girls 
were so scared at this final announcement that all things 
were to end in a crash at precisely two o'clock (just think 
of it ! Less than two hours before the three terrible and 
destructive rumbles), that we hardly knew our names, 
and much less were we able to handle the pen. How we 
did all watch for the coming of the teacher from her din- 
ner hour ! Just as she appeared on the brow of the hill 
to the west. Miss Eaton was met by an excited throng of 
boys and girls who told her the story of the printed slip. 
The teacher at the announcement gave one of her jolly, 
assuring laughs, saying the school would go on as usual, 
and nothing unusual would happen. 

But was n't that the quietest schoolroom that one ever 
did see, at two o'clock that afternoon ! Then you could 
easily have heard that historic pin drop. The three suc- 
cessive shocks of an earthquake did n't come as predicted, 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 43 

so I am here to tell the above thrilling story begotten of 
the Miller doctrine. Mrs. Clough was a woman of rare 
judgment. She was not easily disturbed, and her influ- 
ence over her pupils was always helpful and hopeful. 
She invariably presented an attractive presence to the 
children. I shall never forget that shapely gown she wore, 
with a background of blue, with stripes running longi- 
tudinally — the fitting of it was exquisitely perfect. Jn 
a pleasant call made Mrs. Clough a year or two before 
her death, I mentioned among other things that gown 
which seemed to have grown to her, when she replied, 
*' Yes, I remember it well," and she seemed not a little 
pleased that I too remembered it ; and then she told me 
in a facetious way how, when boarding at the home of 
the late Hon. Abraham Emerson, the son, Daniel F. Em- 
erson, came near spoiling the dress by spilling a bottle of 
ink over it as he was chasing about the room to jump a 
broomstick. By good luck, however, some chemicals took 
out the inkstains, so the gown with its blue background 
and longitudinal stripes was saved from defacement. 

All these little details of the personal appearance of a 
teacher I mention that I may give further emphasis to 
the effectiveness of the objective teaching he and she must 
necessarily do. Mrs. Clough always enjoyed a bit of 
pleasantry, and she equally enjoyed telling of it to others. 
To illustrate what mere imagination will do, she related 
in a humorous way while boarding at my home, how that 
Mrs. Captain Jesse Eaton, upon a time, left her kitchen 
for a moment just as she had broken two eggs into a pan 
of dough to be mixed for pancakes. In her absence the 
husband. Captain Jesse Eaton, spooned up the eggs and 
swallowed them both, and was vigorously stirring or mix- 



44 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

ing the dough when Mrs. Eaton returned to the kitchen, 
the eggs, of course, apparently being in the mix. At the 
breakfast table when the cakes were served, Captain Jesse 
said to his wife, "How short and palatable these cakes 
are ! " " Well," replied Mrs. Eaton, " they should be, for 
I used two eggs in their cooking." Mrs. Clough never 
failed to see and enjoy the humorous side of life, as well 
as its more serious side. She always carried the sunshine 
with her wherever she went. She had no cloudy days in 
school, and her pupils easily caught the inspiration that 
came from her abounding good cheer, and sunny nature. 

I have thus written at some length of Mrs. Governor 
Smyth and Mrs. Clough, because they came into my earlier 
life as teachers, and that my first school days are so closely 
and so pleasantly associated with their sweet, youthful 
lives. But there are other teachers whose names are for- 
ever linked with the school in district No. 4, and with 
other schools of the town, who will receive loving and 
honorable mention in chapter IX. 

" Delightful task ! To rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot." 



IX 



It sbould be borne constantly in mind that these letters 
concerning the earlier life of my native town are not essays 
on some popular literary subject, neither are they disquisi- 
tions upon some intricate theological question. They are 
simply informal talks about Candia as she was when I 

was — 

" Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, 

When thought is speech and speech is truth." 

Indeed these letters are nothing other than familiar chats 
with the boys and girls of my day, before the open fire 
of a winter evening with a mug of cider, with its two 
fiery red bell peppers, simmering away for the further 
entertainment of the company, so that I am not hampered 
and bound in telling this story of the olden time, by any 
set rules of rhetoric, or by any severe logical way of put- 
ting things. 

It is altogether delightful that in all narrative writing, 
one may roam where he will at his own sweet pleasure. 
He may, if he chooses, now and then switch off from the 
main story, to bring in a collateral, indirectly bearing on 
what the writer has to say. So please, dear reader, under- 
stand I am swinging a go-easy pen, and dipping it in ink 
of various colors. 

Draw your chair up nearer, while I say a further word 
of the old time district school teachers in Candia. Per- 
haps not immediately following Mrs. Clough, but soon 



46 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

afterwards, came her sister, Miss Martha Eaton, now Mrs. 
Spofford of Manchester, N. H., as a teacher in my home 
neighborhood school. I have the pleasantest remembrances 
of the then Martha Eaton. She too was of attractive per- 
sonal presence, and winning in all her ways. I think it 
must be true that all the Eaton girls of the home place, 
where now Miss Ellen S. Eaton resides, were born teachers. 
At any rate they were naturally possessed of that drawing 
power which attracts the children and holds them willing 
and glad subjects. 

A delightful evening was passed with Mrs. Spofford two 
summers ago at the home of Miss Ellen S. Eaton by 
several of her pupils of the early forties in the century 
gone by. 

I, with the rest of that little company, was pleased to 
note how gracefully Mrs. Spofford had met the years as 
they have passed in quick succession. Many a story was 
told on that evening of reunion of teacher and pupils of dis- 
trict No. 4. I am glad to learn that Mrs. Spofford is really 
growing younger as the years accumulate, and that she is 
as much interested now as ever in all that pertains to this 
beautiful world and to its active, enterprising life. Then 
there was Miss Abbie Lane, sister of the late Mrs. Gover- 
nor Symth, another of the early teachers in the home 
school. Miss Lane, so well known in Candia as Mrs. 
Doctor Paige, was a most amiable woman, so quiet and 
unassuming in all her ways ! She was much beloved by 
her pupils, and yet I fear that some of the larger boys 
during that winter term of her teaching, troubled her. I 
recall now a little incident which occurred under her in- 
struction which may be only one of others like unto it. 

It w^s at the recess of an afternoon that some of the 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 47 

boys created an undue disturbance upon the playground, 
in which disturbance, as I remember it now, Daniel F. 
Emerson, of Manchester, was the instigator and leader, but 
somehow, I don't know why, suspicions fell on me as being 
guilty of the somewhat irregular and demonstrative out- 
break at the recess already mentioned. Dan, as he was 
familarly known in district No. 4, was a good boy and 
one who always said his prayers, still he took no little de- 
light in now and then playing his hand so cutely, that some 
other fellow would be compelled according to the law of 
all evidence, to shoulder the blame. So in this instance, I 
was apparently the "Jonah" — so thought the teacher, 
and I was consequently requested " to stop after school." 
I stoutly asserted my innocence, all the while saying, *' It 
was Dan who did it," but all to no avail. 

Miss Lane invariably closed the afternoon session of 
school by having her pupils repeat a verse of Scripture. 
The thought happily occurred to me that there might be 
something in the Four Gospels which would help my case, 
so I set about turning the leaves of my New Testament 
with earnest, prayerful intent, when in a sort of providen- 
tial way I fell upon the verse reading as follows ; " I told 
you the truth but ye believed me not." When it came my 
turn to repeat the Scriptural verse learned, I rose from 
my seat feeling that I had on the full armor of the Gospel, 
and that all the prophets and the apostles and the holy 
men of Israel were on my side. I repeated my verse with 
an unction, but I had to stop after school all the same. I 
remember with all the vividness of yesterday, just how 
gracefully Miss Lane leaned against her desk as she pleas- 
antly questioned me concerning that tumultuous noise and 
disturbance at the recess hour. I do not recall just how 



48 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

the matter was settled. This I do know, however, that 
" Dan " escaped the penalty of the law, and went forth 
with an innocent smile upon his face, and with an air of 
the most complacent satisfaction. It was only a few sum- 
mers previous to the death of Mrs. Paige, that I called upon 
her at her late home. It was a reminiscent hour with us 
both. She spoke pleasantly of her pupils of the long ago, 
while I assured her of the love that every girl and boy of 
us had for her as a teacher, and for her as a loving and 
lovable woman. 

It was in the autumn of 1858, when teaching the High 
School on the hill, that I had my midday meal with Mrs. 
Paige, so that I renewed my acquaintance with her. She 
never failed to pleasantly impress me with her quiet way 
of saying and doing things. 

She was like the still summer evening, made charm- 
ingly attractive through its almost audible silence, when 
no rustle of twig or leaf is heard in all the land about. 

Then there was Miss Elizabeth Murray, who taught a 
summer term in district No. 4, sometime previous to the 
forties. I think her teaching must have been in the later 
thirties. While I have only the most shadowy remem- 
brance of Miss Murray as a teacher, still I do recall how 
she would stand a class of us little folks in the straightest 
of lines, and then just before our reading lesson, have us 
close our eyes and say our prayers in concert. And I can- 
not forget what a temptation it was for me to squint just 
a bit with one eye at least, before the class got to the 
" amen." And then I remember that brass-handle pen- 
knife, which, with its blade shut. Miss Murray would occa- 
sionally let go at some inattentive and refractory pupil. 
Let it be said, however, that she always aimed at some 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 49 

non-vital spot. And then the male teachers, what a long 
line of them ! 

The late Edmund Hill was my first " schoolmaster," 
whom I well remember. Mr. Hill was a man of first-class 
literary ability. He was keenly alive to the best there is 
in the intellectual world. He infused his pupils with that 
same love of learning which he possessed. As a teacher 
in the public schools of the town, and jjis a citizen of Can- 
dia, he ranked among the first of the foremost. Mr. Hill, 
more familiarly known as Deacon Hill, bore a striking 
resemblance in facial feature and expression to the pictures 
of Shakespeare. 

Then, there was the late Josiah Shannon, son of the 
late Deacon Shannon, who taught one winter term in dis- 
trict No. 4. Mr. Shannon was of an exceedingly nervous 
temperament, under whose management things had to go 
or break. A little impatient at times of results, he has- 
tened on with quickened step with whatever work he had 
in hand. Mr. Shannon was much respected by his pupils, 
and highly regarded by his townspeople. I have learned 
that in Manchester, where he resided for so many years, 
he endeared himself to all classes alike through that love 
for humanity, which revealed itself in all his business and 
social life. 

And now comes John Clement in the winter of 1847, 
then a senior at Dartmouth. Mr. Clement was one of 
the most amiable of young men. His companionship both 
in and out of the schoolroom was altog^ether delisfhtful. 
He was after the same manner of man as was his genial 
father, the Rev. Dr. Clement of Chester. Then followed 
Rufus Jay Kittridge of Chester, Moses C. Smith of Hamp- 
stead, and J. Frank Dudley of Candia. J. Frank Dudley, 



50 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

now the Rev. Dr., was my last teacher in the common dis- 
trict school. Bright as a new silver dollar, and sparkling 
all over with the keenest wit, he taught his pupils on the 
brightest and livest plans. I shall have more to say of Mr. 
Dudley in a subsequent letter. 

In naming these individual teachers, representatives of 
the teachers in Candia as they were in a century that has 
now passed into history, I have had in mind the fact that 
each teacher made a lasting impression on his and her 
pupils, each in his and her own way. And thus must it 
ever be. 

The teacher should be one commissioned from on hi^h. 
He should tarry for a little in some Jerusalem, until im- 
bued with the spirit ; for he who deals with mind enters 
into copartnership with God Himself. That master of 
masters, and teacher of teachers, the very Christ, well un- 
derstood all pedagogics. He taught in an objective way. 
To his disciples he said, " Consider the lilies of the field, 
how they grow : they toil not, neither do they spin ; and 
yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was 
not arrayed like one of these." " He opened his mouth 
and taught them, saying," must be the base and cap-stone 
of all teaching that shall stand the test. 

" And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain : 
and when he was set, his disciples came unto him." The 
pupils of the Christ-master flocked to him, and as surely 
will the children flock to an earthly master who has the 
love and enthusiasm of the true teacher about him and in 
him. 



X 



Mark Twain, with all his good nature and keen sense of 
humor, was unconsciously guilty of a libel when he said 
that " God first made idiots for practice, and then made 
school committee men." At any rate, I have the profound- 
est respect for the school committee of Candia in the years 
of long ago. And how well, and with what pleasure I 
remember them ! There come to me as I write, the Hon. 
Abraham Emerson, Deacon Francis Patten, Alfred Colby, 
Dr. Isaiah Lane, Col. Cass, Dr. Eastman, Harvey Phil- 
brick, John D. Patterson, and others, who served Candia 
long and well in all her educational work. These men 
who have long been deceased, still live in the history of 
the district schools of Candia ; so to write of these and 
leave the school committee out of the record would be 
again the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet left out. 

I am quite sure there are none of the former pupils 
of the good old town who do not vividly remember those 
more or less frequent visits of the school committee to the 
several schools of the town. During their august presence 
how we boys and girls were on our good behavior ! How 
upright those men of learning would sit in that red box 
desk in school No. 4 ! How they would carefully watch 
every movement of us pupils, and how they would note 
each answer given to questions put by the teacher ! Occa- 
sionally the visiting committee would take an active part 
in questioning the pupil, and not so infrequently as one 



52 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

might at first suppose, a heated discussion would be carried 
on between the pupil and the committeeman ; for in the 
olden time the school children in Candia were taught to 
think for themselves, and to hold to their opinion with an 
intelligent tenacity until convinced to the contrary. I well 
remember that earnest and interesting debate during one 
of the official visits of Dr. Lane to my home-school, had 
by the doctor and one of the pupils. The discussion was 
over the sentence reading as follows : — 

" How vain I find my power is, 
To track the windings of the curious mind ! " 

The pupil insisted, and rightfully so, that the word 
" find " was a transitive verb ; to this Dr. Lane stoutly 
objected, as the verb had no single word for its object. 
The pupil, however, still persisted and insisted that the 
verb was transitive, having for its object the subordinate 
sentence following it. I have no question that the doctor 
and the boy, who so strenuously stood his ground, all the 
more respected each other, for holding each to his own 
view of the grammatical relationship of the sentence under 
discussion. I mention this one incident, out of many simi- 
lar ones, to give emphasis to the fact that the children in 
the schools way back, both in time and in the country, 
were taught to think for themselves. 

And then those speeches of the committeemen at the 
close of their visit ! Who can ever forget them ! How 
kindly Deacon Patten would say, " I am glad to see that 
you children are wisely improving your time," adding, 
" You boys and girls must remember that soon the places 
we now occupy you will fill." And then as though it were 
but yesterday, I can see Dr. Lane at the closing hour of 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 53 

school rise from his seat slowly and with impressive dignity 
to tell us children how much pleased he had been with 
his visit, and I do not forget the good advice he gave so 
many years ago. 

I '11 venture there is not a man or woman in my home 
neighborhood who was a pupil with me in the little red 
schoolhouse, who does not remember that visit of Dr. East- 
man, when he gave us boys a lecture on profanity in his clos- 
ing " remarks." It happened that he heard one of the boys 
at recess use a " swear word " in his play on the school 
grounds, which was a very unusual thing in district No. 4, 
for we were all taught good morals as well as sound learn- 
ing. The doctor did in no way forget that " bad word " 
when he came to make his little speech, and so it was that 
he gave the boys a sound lecture on the utter foolishness 
and wickedness of profanity. After the dismissal of the 
school, the boys each and all said to Daniel Emerson, 
who had his home with the late Simon French (not the 
Daniel to whom reference was made in chapter IX), 
" The doctor must have meant you, for he looked straight 
at you all the while he was telling of the awful wickedness 
of profanity." " Well he might look at me," replied Dan- 
iel, " for I was the only boy in school who could inno- 
cently look the doctor in the eye. All the other heads 
were down." This was the same Daniel, it will be remem- 
bered, who had a composition on " skating." It seems that 
Daniel had spent the previous afternoon in skating, so he 
ended his composition in this emphatic way. " Our legs 
were so stiff the next morning that we could hardly get 
one foot before the other, our legs were so stiff." How 
we all, teacher and pupils, made ready for the committee 
in a body, on those ever to be remembered and eventful 



54 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

" examination days " ! Every boy and girl of us in our 
go-to-meeting clothes, and the teacher in his best, and if a 
schoolmarm, in her neatest and prettiest gown. How omi- 
nous the silence just before the arrival of the school com- 
mittee ! And how the dear old fathers and mothers would 
come along in goodly numbers that they might witness the 
advancement made by their bright, promising children. Oh, 
those " examination days " were " field days " in the educa- 
tional life of the children. And then came the speeches 
from the school committee, and then followed prayer, which 
was invariably made in those earlier school days. In the 
more modern method of doing things in the educational 
world, the schools have largely done away with the prayer 
and with the reading of Scripture. It is a question, how- 
ever, if all this is not a step backward. I should have 
mentioned the Rev. William Murdock as a member of 
the school committee in Candia, for he served as such 
several years. I can now see his stately form as he ap- 
proached and entered the schoolroom, and never did he 
leave teacher and pupils without calling down upon them 
the divine blessing. 

The school committee of Candia a half -century and more 
ago were men of abounding common sense, with a prac- 
tical education obtained in the country district schools. 
Many of them had had several terms of experience in 
these same country schools as teachers ; and they were suc- 
cessful teachers, for they had first learned what a practi- 
cal life necessarily demands. 

My first " certificate " allowing me to teach in the dis- 
trict schools of Candia was granted me by Deacon Francis 
Patten, Hon. Abraham Emerson, and John D. Patterson, 
who then, in 1852, were the school committee of the town. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 55 

Were I to live however long, I shall never forget that ex- 
amination. It was held in the schoolhouse at Candia Cor- 
ner with every member of the committee present. I do 
not remember just how many of us would-be teachers were 
examined at that time. It is, however, fresh in my memory 
that Moses F. Emerson was one of the number. I recall, 
too, that the examination took in Colburn's and the written 
arithmetic, reading, spelling, grammar, and geography, and 
something of history. I have no distinct remembrance of 
any particular question asked me save one, and that was 
asked by John D. Patterson, and it was the following : 
" Will you tell me, Wilson, why the moon seems larger 
at its rising than it does as it approaches the zenith ? " So 
I at once surmised that Mr. Patterson was something of 
a philosopher. 

Well, Moses Emerson and I received with commendable 
pride our " certificates." Where he taught that first winter 
of his experience I am not sure, unless it was in the Pat- 
ten district. My first experience as teacher was had in 
the Island district, and I remember to this day that I 
" boarded round," and had during that winter seventeen 
different homes, and all of them excellent ones. With the 
best bed in the house and with the best of everything to 
eat, who could complain ! 

To the dear old district schools of Candia and to their 
intelligent and kindly committeemen, and to those loving 
and lovable teachers, and to those ever-remembered school- 
mates my heart fondly turns. The sweet memory of them 
all has become a part of my very being. Now for the Candia 
High School and its Lyceum, and then we shall gladly and 
proudly call the Candia boys and girls by name, those who 
have stayed at home on the old farm, and those who have 



56 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

gone out from the home into that larger world to seek their 
livelihood ; for we are all of the same family, whether re- 
maining on the old homestead or far removed therefrom, 
and we all have been educated in the same country schools. 
So give me your hand and your heart, while I go on with 
my story. 



XI 



Here at Whiteface, N. H., iu God's own country, sur- 
rounded by these grand old mountains, and in closest touch 
with this long winding valley stretching itself leisurely 
away to the Pine Tree State, I find myself still singing of 
Candia. There is a feeling of happy relief in occasionally 
getting away from men and women, so as to hold " sweet 
communion " with Nature. Christ delighted to withdraw 
more or less frequently from the multitude, and betake 
himself to a desert place. And so it was that he was often 
seen during the coming on of the twilight, in his boat 
alone, on the Sea of Galilee. There is a charm in solitude 
nowhere else to be found. Here, apart from the noisy, 
busy world, there comes to one's vision a clearer and more 
distinct vision of the past. Nestled among these moun- 
tains, of which Whittier so sweetly sang, the Candia High 
School of so many years ago comes back to me laden with 
a thousand precious memories. The high school of a half- 
century and more ago in the dear old home-town was the 
legitimate offspring and first-born of the Candia district 
schools ; for the love of learning begotten in the little red 
schoolhouse demanded a further search for knowledge, in 
more extended fields of study, and so the high school in 
Candia became an institution of the town. 

Every girl and boy counted on the coming of the 
autumn time, that they might make their way to this 
higher department of learning. I can only make a passing 



58 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

reference to the earlier high school in Charmingf are, as it 
had its beginning in the shadowy past. The first teacher 
in this higher preparatory school whom I remember was 
a Mr. Pease, who taught on the road leading to Deacon 
Healey's home. Of course, I was not a pupil under Mr. 
Pease. My high school days came later. At the time of 
Mr. Pease's teaching there were the Lanes, the Eatons, 
the Browns, the Fittses, Mrs. Edmund Hill (known then 
as Sarah W. Emerson), the late Mrs. Walter R. Dolber 
(then Mary Jane Palmer), the Rev. Moses Patten and 
others of this class in years, who made up the registry of 
the earlier high school in Candia. 

Following Mr. Pease, there came as teachers (not per- 
haps in the order that I name them), James O. Adams of 
Manchester, now deceased, the Hon. David Cross of the 
above city, the Hon. William C. Todd of Atkinson, so 
recently deceased, a Mr. Burnham, Mr. Marshall of Hamp- 
stead, Mr. Storrs, who subsequently became a distinguished 
clergyman, Mr. Farrar, Mr. Chapin, Deacon Samuel Sar- 
geant of Methuen, Mass., and most likely others whose 
names I do not recall. In passing, I must speak more at 
length of two of the above teachers whom I came to know 
so well and so pleasantly in later life. I refer to the Hon. 
David Cross of Manchester, and to the Hon. William C. 
Todd, whose funeral obsequies were held at his late home 
in Atkinson on June 29, 1903. Although not under Mr. 
Todd's instruction in Candia, still I well knew of his 
deserved popularity as a teacher and a man by the people 
of my town. He was so genial in all his ways, that he 
drew a multitude of friends close about him wherever 
he went. Candia has never forgotten Mr. Todd. 

In the spring of 1854, the late Capt. William R. Patten, 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 59 

my brotlier, Alanson Palmer, and myself became pupils in 
Atkinson Academy, of which Mr. Todd was then principal. 
I shall never forget how, arriving in Atkinson at noon-day, 
I at once found my way to Mr. Todd's home, and were I to 
live on indefinitely, I could never forget the cordial recep- 
tion given me. After telling him my plans for the college, 
he gave me a copy of Stoddard's Latin grammar, in which 
I first learned to conjugate the verb " amo," and what is 
better, I then learned its intense meaning in English. That 
first lesson in my Latin grammar was the most important 
one I ever learned, for it taught me that to love was, or 
should be, the beginning and end of all language. I found 
Mr. Todd one of the most delightful teachers. He had no 
pupil who did not love him. He had a heart responsive to 
all that was best, and he gave most generously to his pupils 
out of his heart of hearts. There was no one in the academy 
or in the town of Atkinson who did not deeply mourn his 
departure to the Girls' High School in Newburyport, Mass. 
I felt, and so did we all, that I had lost the immediate 
presence of a friend, such a friend as is seldom found. I 
met, for the last time, Mr. Todd some two or three years 
ago in Newburyport, while I was a guest at the Rev. Dr. 
S. C. Beane's home. He met me as in the years before, 
with all that cordiality that was so characteristic of the 
man. He affectionately inquired for Candia, and spoke 
lovingly of his pleasant remembrances of the town. 

Mr. Todd took a personal interest and pride in the well- 
doing and success of every boy and girl who had been 
under his instruction as a teacher. The Hon. William C. 
Todd's life has been well rounded out in years, and in 
generous, loving deeds to his kind. For the something 
more than eighty years of his life, he had labored for the 



60 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

good of mankind. His greatest happiness consisted in 
making others happy. His frequent gifts for benevolent 
and charitable objects will ever remain a tribute to his 
memory. In the death of Mr. Todd, New. Hampshire is 
bereaved of one of her noblest sons, and as such will she 
mourn him, and so will Massachusetts as well. On Mon- 
day, June 29, all that was mortal of Mr. Todd was laid to 
rest. And yet he, the loving, generous, upright man that 
he was, survives, and will survive, through all the eternity 
of years to come, for such a life as he lived is immortalized 
here on earth. 

It would be ingratitude itself, were I not to write of 
the Hon. David Cross of Manchester, whom I have come 
to know so well. While I was not a pupil in the high 
school when David Cross, now the Hon. Judge Cross, was 
its principal, yet I was a pupil in his law office during the 
year 1863, so that I came to know him intimately. As my 
law instructor I found him to be what he had so pleasantly 
proven himself as a man and a teacher during two terms 
of school work in Candia. Judge David Cross must have 
been born under a kindly fortunate star, for he has taken 
his busy life without a murmur. He has invariably looked 
upon the bright side of everything with which he has had 
to do. Happy himself, he has all the while made others 
happy. Whenever in Manchester, I make it a point prece- 
dent to call on Judge Cross at his office ; and if I have but 
a moment to stay, I always go out from his office having 
about me the sunshine, for the judge dwells in an atmo- 
sphere of perpetual sunshine. Judge Cross is distinguished 
throughout New England for his legal attainments, and 
especially is he distinguished throughout his native state, 
and besides, what is better than all, he is greatly beloved 




DAVID CROSS 



EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 61 

by all New Hampshire. At the age of eighty-six years, 
Judge Cross retains all the enthusiasm of a man in middle 
life, and in spite of his many years he has the face and erect 
form of one many years his junior. Ask Dartmouth Col- 
lege to name one of her most distinguished and most lov- 
ing and most lovable of alumni, and she will at once 
reply, " The Hon. David Cross of Manchester." I am sure 
I do not overstate the fact, when I write that Dartmouth 
College has no living graduate whom she loves quite so 
much and as tenderly as she does Judge Cross ; and it may 
be safely said that in turn Judge Cross loves Dartmouth 
College with a devoted and well-nigh consecrated love. 
Dartmouth College has no Commencement or meeting of 
the alumni at which Judge Cross is not present, and on 
each and every one of these occasions his voice is heard 
singing the praises of his alma mater. I have thus written 
at some length of the Hon. William C. Todd and the Hon. 
David Cross, because their early lives were so closely asso- 
ciated with the earlier life of Candia, and because Candia 
shares in the honor that each of these distinguished men 
has so richly earned for himself. Candia well understood 
how to select for her high school as teachers, men of 
eminent worth and ability, and men, be it said, who have 
successfully stood the test of a noble manhood. 

But dear me, there must be another chapter on the Can- 
dia High School. Why, to write the history of the earlier 
life of Candia, " the world would not contain the books " 
wherein that history might be written. But, dear reader, 
whose birthplace and date of birth are written down in the 
family Bible at your former home in Candia,do be patient, 
for I shall soon get to your name, when I shall gladly tell all 
the good things I know of you — and I know lots of them. 



XII 

It was not until the autumn of 1852 and that of 1853, 
that I came to know the Candia High School personally 
and well, and to appreciate its many advantages, for it was 
not until the above dates that I was registered as a pupil 
therein. In the high school immediately previous to my 
time there were among those in attendance Daniel Dana 
Patten, Nathan B. Prescott of Derry, my brother Albert 
Palmer, Cotton Beane of New York, the Rev. Samuel C. 
Beane, D. D., of Newburyport, Mass., the Rev. J, Frank 
Dudley, D. D., located somewhere in the West, Rev. John 
D. Emerson, Thomas Lang of Maiden, Mass., Mrs. James 
H. Fitts of Newfields, she who was Celina French, Mrs. 
Dr. Eaton, better known in Candia as Harriet Lane, and 
Mrs. Charles Pressey of Winchester, Mass., known by all 
Candians as Elizabeth Patten, and a long list of others, 
some of whose names I mentioned in chapter XI. Dan- 
iel Dana Patten, Rev. John D. Emerson, Albert Palmer, 
and many others of the earlier high school have suc- 
cessfully and happily passed their final examination, and 
are now being taught in the Infinite Presence. Heaven has 
been enriched by those who have gone out and up from the 
Candia High School of years agone. That was an event in 
my life which enrolled me as a member of the school under 
the instruction of Samuel Farrar, then a recent graduate 
of Dartmouth College. 

I shall remember for evermore how my good mother on 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 63 

that auspicious September morning piled the dinner pail 
to the brim for myself and my brother Alanson, as we 
started for that temple of learning " on the hill." I am 
confident there was no Candia boy or girl in those days 
who sang with the poet, — 

" Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb 
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar." 

No, no, for with gladsome hearts the way was made easy 
for all by the many loving sacrifices made by those dear 
fathers and mothers that we, their children, might drink 
long and deep at " learning's fount." Mr. Farrar proved 
himself an exceedingly pleasant man and a teacher whom 
his pupils greatly loved. It was on the evening of the 
closing exercises of his term of school that in his good-by 
words to his pupils, he said as a finale, " Boys and girls, 
should you ever come to Pepperell, Mass., don't forget to 
call on Sam Farrar." There were in attendance at that au- 
tumn session of the high school some forty pupils, among 
whom were the Rev. S. F. French of Londonderry, Moses F. 
Emerson, the late Capt. William R. Patten, Mrs. Jesse W. 
Sargeant, Mrs. John D. Colby, Mrs. Moses F. Emerson, 
Mrs. Eben Eaton, the late Hon. James H. Eaton, Mrs. 
John G. Lane, the late Rev. James P. Lane, Emma Pills- 
bury, who subsequently became the wife of Rev. James P. 
Lane, Porter Reed, Sarah Fitts, who afterwards was Mrs. 
John Patten, Ann Emerson, who later on married and 
settled in Haverhill, Mass., the late Frank Buswell, Henry 
French, resident in one of the suburbs of Boston, and the 
late Mary B. Lane, and many others whose names I do not 
at this writing recall. The Hon. Luther W. Emerson and 
the Rev. George H. French were pupils in the high school 



64 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

but a year or two after my time, if I remember rightly. Of 
course, I am not able to give a full and accurate list of those 
who were at one time and another, pupils in the high school ; 
— however, I have given a representative showing, and 
those names which do not now occur to me will, I have no 
doubt, come to me later, when I shall gladly give them place 
in these reminiscences of the home town. The pupils who 
were under the instruction of Mr. Farrar, and under the 
tuition of Mr. Chapin the following autumn, were a com- 
pany of bright boys and girls who were determined, from 
the start, to make the most out of their high school days. 
They were not content until they had learned the " why 
and wherefore," in each department of their studies. This 
spirit of earnest inquiry pleased Mr. Farrar, while at times 
it seemed to trouble and annoy Mr. Chapin. But Mr. 
Chapin was a good man and I respect his memory. It hap- 
pened, and fortunately so, I think, that Mr. Chapin was 
married, for Mrs. Chapin was of valuable assistance to her 
husband in effecting the discipline of the school. A woman 
pleasant in all her ways, with a face inviting, she easily 
drew about her Mr. Chapin's pupils, which fact was a sub- 
stantial aid to him. I am very sure that none of the boys 
and girls in the high school under Mr. Chapin will ever 
forget how we all accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Chapin, at 
the close of their term, from their boarding-place down to 
the depot as they were starting for home. And I am even 
more than sure that the memory of that kiss which Mrs. 
Chapin gave every boy of us, and be it remembered we 
were big boys, will never fade out of our remembrance. 
I don't know that we boys sang with Robert Dodsley : 

*' One kind kiss before we part, 
Drop a tear and bid adieu ; 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 65 

Though we sever, my fond heart 
Till we meet, shall pant for you." 

But whether we sang or not the above lines, I, in speak- 
ing for myself, have ever held that kiss which Mrs. Cha- 
pin gave me in sweet remembrance, and in return for it, 
I have no doubt that I gave her an audible smack. 

In writing of the high school pupils of my town I do 
no injustice to others in first paying tribute to the late 
Mary B. Lane, for she was a girl who constantly dwelt in 
a literary atmosphere. Of quiet and winning manner, she 
made a host of loving friends wherever she went. To 
know her was to love her. She had the keenest apprecia- 
tion of all that was best in the world of intellect. All 
nature became her teacher, and she was one of her most 
devoted and appreciative pupils. To her, the morning and 
the evening were the painting and the poetry of the skies. 
The landscape, to her, was the penciling of an infinite 
hand. She was one in love with God's own world, so she 
took in the best and the richest of all to be found both in 
the material and immaterial world. No wonder that she 
so frequently broke forth into song in sweetest verse. She 
sang as few others could sing, for she was attuned to all 
the harmonies in air and earth and sky. Her heart re- 
sponded to all that was sweet and beautiful, because she 
herself was all that is sweet and beautiful. 

The following poem, written by Miss Lane in 1858, was 
published during the succeeding year in the " Boston 
Journal," and called forth from that metropolitan sheet 
the most favorable comment. The subject of the poem is, 
" The Things that are Unseen," and I gladly reproduce 
it as a whole, knowing that the Candia readers of the 
'* Derry News " will especially enjoy her sweet verse, sung 



66 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

so many years ago, and still a living inspiration in all the 
world of poetry. The poem reads as follows : — 

" Flowers more beautiful and fragrant 
Than the richest gardens boast, 
Bloom unheeded in the desert 
Or in forest dells are lost. 

^* Gems of purest lustre sparkle 
Where no human foot has trod, 
And no eye has ever wandered. 
Save the Omniscient eye of God. 

" Hidden 'neath the waves of ocean. 
Radiant pearls and diamonds glow ; 
Richer far than ever glistened 
On the monarch's haughty brow. 

" And a thousand constellations 
Shine beyond our mortal sight, 
Whose bright glories, ere they reach us, 
Must be lost in endless night. 

"Like the pearl beneath the billows. 
Or the forest flower unseen, 
Unrevealed, yet passing glorious, 
Is the spirit's life within. 

" Not alone in outward action. 
Not in labor's ceaseless strife. 
Is the sum of our existence 
Or the charm of human life. 

" Most of grandeur, power and beauty 
Far within the spirit dwell. 
In the heart's deep secret fountain, 
Whence the holiest passions swell, 




MISS MARY B. LANE 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 67 

" In the love that never falters, 

Through all change enduring still, 
In the busy faithful memory. 
And the free and earnest will. 

" Far beneath all speech or language, 
Many a great and noble thought 
Fit to deck the brow of genius 
Lives unheeded and unsought. 

" There are myriad aspirations 

Never breathed by human tongue, 
And a thousand dreams of beauty, 
Which the poet never sung. 

" Many a fierce though bloodless battle 
Ne'er by history enrolled, 
Has been fought by strong temptation 
In the silence of the soul. 

" Victories all unrecorded 

Have been gained o'er giant wrong. 
And by deeply hidden struggles, 
Many a hero has grown strong. 

" Outward loveliness and grandeur 
Vanish like a fleeting dream; 
But eternity is peopled 

With ' the things that are unseen.' 

" All true excellence and beauty, 
Now by earthly mists concealed, 
In that world of light celestial, 
Evermore shall stand revealed." 

Mary B. Lane was the sweet singer of Candia, and 
wrote, — 



68 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

" In the love that never falters, 

Through all change enduring still." 

So it was that she sang, having first been breathed upon 
by that intense spirit of love, which puts to the most 
melodious music, both heart and soul. I add no further 
word to this chapter, for I am desirous that the late Mary 
B. Lane, of the old Candia High School, shall herself 
give its ending, in her choicest note of sweetest song, and 
may she thus sing anew in every Candia home. 



I 



XIII 

In this my concluding chapter on the Candia High School, 
as I remember it, I must not forget to give Enoch Breed 
a conspicuous place among its teachers. 

Mr. Breed was a young man, then recently from Dart- 
mouth, bubbling all over with good health and youthful 
blood. He was eminently of a social nature, and was a 
most companionable fellow. He was one of those men 
who never fail to come in closest touch with the world, 
and he enjoyed its "three hurrahs and a tiger" as few 
others did. Mr. Breed proved himself an excellent in- 
structor, and was much appreciated as such by his pupils. 
I was not under his tutelage, still I came to know him 
well through those who attended his school. 

The Candia High School of the long ago was a substantial 
factor in moulding and giving emphasis to the character 
of many a girl and boy of the town who attended its ses- 
sions. Not only were the English branches taught in the 
high school in the times of which I write, but the pre- 
paratory studies of the college were taught as well. I 
shall have occasion later on to speak of the boys who 
went from this school to Dartmouth and other colleges, 
not forgetting to say a good word of the Candia High 
School girls who subsequently became pupils in higher 
institutions of learning. 

I should fail in a large way, in setting forth the high 
school of my day, were I to leave out of my story those 



70 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

never-to-be-forgotten Wednesday afternoons on which de- 
clamations and compositions made up the programme of the 
hour. How we boys and girls did enjoy those field occa- 
sions for flights in oratory and in essay reading ! The 
woods back of the schoolhouse on the hill in those days 
were made vocal by man}?^ a young Demosthenes in re- 
hearsing his " piece " for the Wednesday afternoon exer- 
cises. When one saw Captain William R. Patten, better 
known as "Bill," and the Hon. Luther W. Emerson, 
known as " Lute," and Porter Reed, and the late Hon. 
James H. Eaton and Alanson Palmer and other boys, 
making their way to the grove back of Eleazor Knowles' 
house, one could positively declare that it was Wednesday, 
on the afternoon of which each of these boys was to make 
his best bow on the stage, and pour forth his youthful 
eloquence. Those declamation days were invaluable to the 
boys of Candia. The good old home town has sent out 
into the world several men who in an oratorical as well as 
in a literary way, have brought much credit and honor to 
Candia. And that they have brought such credit and 
honor, is largely due to the training they received in the 
schools of the town. The selections for declamations were 
always made with great care. The best paragraphs in 
prose and poetry were memorized, and so memorized and 
repeated and re-repeated that they stayed by the boys, 
as does the English alphabet, or the multiplication table. 
The " pieces," or most of them that I declaimed in school 
fifty years ago, I have since declaimed time and again on 
many a by-road, and in field and pasture, and on many a 
prairie of the West. These selections have been my faith- 
ful and inspiring companions in many an hour, when 
otherwise there would have been nothing left me but 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 71' 

whistling to keep my courage up. The late E. P. Whip- 
ple, that most brilliant of all writers, says in his essay on 
" Authors," that '' we can select our companions from the 
most richly gifted of the sons of God ; and they are com- 
panions who will not desert us in poverty, in sickness, or 
in distress. 

" When everything else fails, when this great world of 
form and shows appears a two-edged lie, which seems, but 
is not, when fortune frowns and friends cool and health 
forsakes us, even then, we are not without friends in whose 
immortal countenances, as they look upon us from books, we 
can discern no change. Friends who will people solitudes 
with shapes more glorious than ever glittered in palaces, 
who will visit the firesides of the humble and lavish the 
treasures of the intellect upon the poor, who will conse- 
crate sorrow and take the sting from care, and who, in the 
long hours of sickness and despondency, will send healing 
to the sick heart and energy to the wasted brain." And 
then does Whipple add most eloquently, "Well might 
Milton exclaim in that impassioned speech of his for the 
liberty of unlicensed printing, where every word leaps 
with intellectual life, ' He who kills a man kills a reason- 
able creature; but he who destroys a good book kills 
reason itself, kills the image of God as it were in the eye.' 

" Many a man lives a burden upon the earth, but a good 
book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed 
and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life." That 
whole extract from Whipple, of which the above is but a 
part, I declaimed fifty-one years ago in the schoolhouse on 
the hill, and after so long a time I can now repeat it word 
for word as readily as I did on that autumn afternoon 
in 1852, from the little platform in the school building 



72 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

alongside the " Meeting-House." And then those burning 
words of that great apostle of popular education, Horace 
Mann, delivered before the Mercantile Library Associa- 
tion of Boston in the forties of the century just past ; how 
can I ever forget them ! Just listen a moment and you 
shall hear what Horace Mann said in part : " There is a 
time when the youthful heir of a throne first comes to 
a knowledge of his mighty prerogatives. When he first 
learns what strength there is in his imperial arm and what 
happiness or woe wait upon his voice. When the vista of 
the future with all its possibilities of glory and of shame 
first opens on the vision of youth. 

" Then is he summoned to make his choice between truth 
and treachery, between honor and dishonor, between pu- 
rity and profligacy, between moral life and moral death ; 
and as he doubts or balances between the heavenward and 
the hellward course, as he struggles to rise or consents to 
fall, is there in all the universe of God a spectacle of 
higher exultation or of deeper pathos ? 

"Within him are the appetites of a brute and the at- 
tributes of an angel, and when these meet in council to 
make up the roll of his destiny and seal his fate forever, 
shall the beast hound out the seraph ? Shall the young 
man, now conscious of the largeness of his sphere and of 
the sovereignty of his choice, wed the low ambitions of the 
world and seek with their emptiness to fill his immortal 
desires? Because he has a few animal wants to be sup- 
plied, shall he therefore become all animal, an epicure and 
an inebriate, and blasphemously make the first doctrine of 
his catechism, the chief end of man, to glorify his stomach 
and enjoy it? Because it is the law of self-preservation 
that he shall provide for himself, and the law of religion 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 73 

that he shall provide for his family when he has one, shall 
he therefore cut away all the bonds of humanity that bind 
him to his race, forswear charity, crush down every prompt- 
ing of benevolence, and if he can have the palace and 
equipage of a prince and the table of a Sybarite, become 
a blind man, and a deaf man, and a dumb man when he 
walks the streets where hunger moans and nakedness 
shivers ? " And so on. There are entire pages of that ad- 
mirable and eloquent address of Horace Mann that I can 
now as readily repeat, as I did when a boy. And I am 
sure that those who were in the high school with me can 
reproduce many a paragraph they learned when pupils in 
the schools. 

I have quoted these somewhat lengthy extracts from 
Whipple and Horace Mann, that I may give objective 
proof that what is memorized in youth, becomes in after 
years a substantial part of the man. 

And then those " compositions," — they were indeed a 
brilliant feature of those Wednesday afternoon exercises. 
This department of literary production and exhibition 
more particularly belonged to the girls, though all the 
pupils were required to write original essays. The girls, 
however, took the prize in the line of composition-writing. 
I seem to hear now as though it were but yesterday, Ann 
Caroline Anderson, Lucinda French, Keziah Patten, Abbie 
Patten, Lydia Ann Emerson, Mary B. Lane, and other 
girls of that day, reading what they had written by the 
light of the midnight oil, to an audience of pupils who 
most attentively listened. And one must not forget that 
the girls wrote on subjects that were suggestive of their 
best efforts in a literary way. 

It is exceedingly unfortunate that declamation and com- 



74 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

position day in nearly all of our city and suburban schools, 
is no longer recognized, and possibly there is no sujch day 
in the country schools. On this point I am not informed. 
But in Boston and its suburban schools, there is no de- 
clamation and composition afternoon — and this means a 
long step backward in all literary effort. 

I thus dwell long and earnestly upon the " composition " 
and the declamation because they enter so supremely as 
factors into all scholastic effort and acquirement. Daniel 
Webster counted himself fortunate that he could repeat at 
a moment's notice the unsurpassed poetry of the Psalms. 
It is an accomplishment to be able to repeat on such an 
exquisitely beautiful morning as this here in the moun- 
taiiis,"those Scriptural verses, " The heavens declare the 
glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night shew- 
eth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where 
their voice is not heard." 

Who would forget that " The Lord is my shepherd ; 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth 

me beside the still waters ; Thy rod and thy staff, 

they comfort me; my cup runneth over." Here, among 
these eternal fastnesses, one may well exclaim, " Mercy 
and truth are met together : righteousness and peace have 
kissed each other." There is no book in all the wide 
world from which quotations are so frequent and so apt, 
as those made from the Bible. Daniel Webster gave 
it as his pronounced belief, that it is quite impossible to 
become the scholar without being familiar with Scriptural 
writinofs. 

Now, while I am not preaching, I still insist that memo- 
rizing, in early youth, properly selected passages of Scrip- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 75 

ture, is one of the fundamentals in all literary attain- 
ments. It is a mistake to be deplored that the boys and 
girls in these later days are not reading the Bible as it was 
read fifty years ago. Then the Bible (or rather portions 
of it) was read in the public schools, and in the family." 
The Sunday school in an earlier day had the Bible for its 
textbook. Why not get back a little to the former way in 
which Candia did things ? Why not have the boys and 
girls memorize from the Bible, and from other depart- 
ments of literature ? 

In some directions, I think that the world has taken a 
step backward. With all the advancement made in the 
educational world, I find no school in near vicinity to Bos- 
ton, and I am a good deal familiar with the public schools 
in Arlington, Mass., in any way superior to the Candia 
High School of half a century ago, either in methods of 
teaching or in the subject matter taught. Indeed, I give 
the preference to the Candia High School. The test of all 
school work must be had in the subsequent business or 
professional life of the pupil, and I am safe in saying that 
to-day there is no boy or girl going out from our more 
modern methods of instruction better equipped for the 
duties of life than were the boys and girls of my native 
town fifty years ago. 

All honor, then, to the little red schoolhouse in Candia, 
and to the high school which was a distinguished educa- 
tional feature in the plans and purposes of those dear old 
fathers and mothers, who did their best for the children 
they so dearly loved. I owe, and so do all the boys and 
girls of more than a generation ago, a debt of everlasting 
gratitude for what the Candia schools have done for me, 
and for all of us. The debt can never be paid. But we. 



76 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

then boys and girls, but now men and women, can and will 
hold the schools of the town, and the town herself, the 
loving mother of us all, in a remembrance the most affec- 
tionate. 

My next letter will be of the Candia Lyceum as it was 
in 1852, and in the immediate years following, when 
" Mr. President, I shall contend in the discussion of 
this question, that the dissolution of the Union is prefer- 
able to the extension of slavery," made resonant and all 
alive the vestry under the Church on the Hill. 



XIV 

The Candia Lyceum, as it was way back in the years of 
the calendar, has been a help to me in all my school and 
journalistic life, and I am positive that it has been a decided 
help to those boys who now occupy the pulpit, and to 
those who have made their mark in the legal profession. 
And it has been a substantial aid, as well, to the boys who 
have remained at home on the old farm and to the girls 
who took an active part therein. To be able to speak in 
public, and to discuss before an intelligent audience mat- 
ters of current interest, is an accomplishment that every- 
where counts. Public speaking is an art that should in 
every instance be cultivated. It is not only important that 
one should have something to say, but it is almost as im- 
portant that he should know how to say it. The pulpit 
adds greatly to its power, when the clergyman has a de- 
livery at once attractive and forcible. Many a case has 
been gained in court, by the manner in which the case 
has been presented to the jury. Not only this, for the 
ability to speak in public is of material aid to one in his 
personal conversation. One's words, and their better ex- 
pression, ought always to be invested with that charm 
which draws and holds the listener. These accomplish- 
ments, however, cannot be achieved without the most care- 
ful and persistent training. Demosthenes only became the 
Demosthenes that he was, by walking the shore, and with 
pebble-stones in his mouth, so overcoming his stammering 



78 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

and the noise and angry strife of the sea, that subsequently 
the world listened to and easily heard and understood his 
words of unsurpassed eloquence. 

The Candia*Lyceum was an educator that cannot be left 
out of any written record of the town. Its formative in- 
fluence and power in shaping and moulding the life of 
many a boy and girl, cannot be well overestimated. It 
was in the Candia Lyceum that the sharpest competition 
was had in the line of public speaking. Then, the boys were 
ambitious to excel each other, and so each did his best. 
In the discussion of the various questions presented, there 
was always that previous preparation which went far in 
fitting the boys and girls for their chosen department of life. 

The Lyceum, as I remember it, was conducted in a par- 
liamentary way. It had about it all the dignity of a de- 
liberative body. I now can hear the Rev. S. F. French of 
Londonderry, then a member of the Lyceum, addressing 
the president with all the consideration becoming that 
office, and then followed that opening sentence of his dis- 
cussion, namely: "I shall contend that the dissolution 
of the Union is preferable to the extension of slavery." 
After the question under discussion had been well venti- 
lated by the four disputants, two on the affirmative side, 
and two on the negative, then the question was opened to 
volunteers. The discussion was frequently carried on at a 
white heat, when there would be Sam Beane, Luther W. 
Emerson, Gushing Sargeant, who by the way, was a pupil 
in the high school. Porter Reed, William R. Patten, James 
H. Eaton, Alanson Palmer and others, all trying to get 
the president's eye and so gain the floor at one and the 
same time. In the discussion of the question quoted above, 
its affirmative side would draw all those of republican 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 79 

affiliation, while every red-hot democrat of a boy would 
stoutly maintain that the extension of slavery was a thou- 
sand times preferable to the dissolution of the Union. 
Subsequently, President Lincoln joined in the discussion, 
declaring that the Union should not be dissolved, neither 
should slavery be extended, and to make his declaration 
all the more emphatic, in good time came his Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation, freeing four millions of slaves, with 
the Union saved. 

I do so wish I could reproduce every question discussed 
in the old Candia Lyceum, but unfortunately I do not re- 
call them all, so can only repeat the two or three I do 
remember. I readily recall that the questions. Resolved : 
" That Intemperance is Productive of Greater Evils than 
War," and " That Capital Punishment should be abol- 
ished,*' were discussed for all they were worth. The meet- 
ing of the Lyceum was held in the vestry of the Congrega- 
tional church on Wednesday evening of each week, and it 
was opened by the reading of the minutes of the previous 
meeting by the secretary, and then followed two declama- 
tions by boys, previously appointed by the executive com- 
mittee ; and then followed, if I remember correctly, the 
discussion of the regular question ; and then came the paper 
edited and conducted by the girls. The declamations were 
always selected with evident care, and had been many times 
rehearsed before spoken from the Lyceum platform. The 
boys declaiming always were sure of appreciative and crit- 
ical audiences, for the Lyceum had become of so wide 
repute, that many of the older people of the town were 
uniformly present at its meetings, and took part in the 
discussions, so the boys were bound to do their best. In 
whatever little public speaking that has fallen to me in 



80 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

life, nowhere have I had audiences that called out the best 
I had to give, as did those audiences in the old Candia 
Lyceum, and right here I may properly add, that I invari- 
ably take a greater delight in speaking to a Candia audi- 
ence, than to any other audience wherever convened, and 
this, not only for the reason that Candia gave me my birth 
and education, but for this other reason, that a Candia audi- 
ence is always an appreciative and intelligent audience. 
Those declamations in the Lyceum were a marked feature 
of its meetings. From that little platform in that vestry 
have spoken Daniel Dana Patten, Frank Dudley, John D. 
Emerson, William R. Patten, Moses F. Emerson, Porter 
Reed, Andrew Patten, who was a brilliant pupil in the 
high school, Daniel F. Emerson, Albert Palmer, Alanson 
Palmer, Luther W. Emerson, George Brown, son of the 
late Jonathan Brown, Henry Brown, Benjamin Franklin 
Brown, Frank Patten, S. F. French, George Henry French, 
Sam Beane, Cotton Beane, Nathan B. Prescott, Cushing 
Sargent, James H. Eaton, John G. Lane, James P. Lane, 
Warren Worthen, and others, who made that old vestry 
eloquent with words that counted, and with gestures that 
told. And then these voices of the boys were supple- 
mented by those more telling voices of the girls, Lucinda 
French, Ann Caroline Anderson, Mary B. Lane, Abbie 
Patten, Lydia Ann Emerson, Sarah J'itts, Keziah Patten, 
Ann Emerson, Lucretia Eaton, and the Smith girls, whose 
home was on the South Road, and others, whose names 
do not at this moment come back to me. If the vestry of 
the Congregational church could only give back in audi- 
ble voice, what it has taken in of the Candia Lyceum of 
fifty years ago, how it would echo and reecho of times 
gone by ! 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 81 

That paper, largely the production of the girls, and 
read by them, gave to the Lyceum its supreme moment of 
interest. The paper was ably edited, and it contained a 
variety of literary matter — and then its humorous column 
and funny paragraphs always had a point. That paper, 
as I remember it, was far superior in culture and ability 
to many a country or suburban newspaper published at 
the present day. 

Every department of the Candia Lyceum was educa- 
tional in its purpose and influence. How commendable 
of those boys and girls of so many years ago to associate 
themselves together for the avowed object of intellectual 
advancement ! In all my associated life with the public 
schools as teacher I have never known in a single in- 
stance the pupils voluntarily effecting an organization 
among themselves for the purpose of public debate, de- 
clamation, and original essays. All honor " say we all of 
us " to the Candia Lyceum of old ! It did a noble work, 
the results of which remaineth to this day. Then there 
was the social feature of the Lyceum, which counted in 
after years in the home. 

I can never forget how after the adjournment of the 
Lyceum I would take my stand near the vestry door to see 
the happy mating of some of the bolder and more daring 
of the boys and girls as they made their exit on their way 
homeward. I can now see Daniel F. and Theodosia, and 
John G. and Ann Caroline, and Eben and Lucinda, and 
other congenial and loving souls "looping the loop," so 
that arm in arm they began their life's journey from the 
vestry on the hill happily together and have so continued 
it. Men and women are oftentimes "led in ways they 
know not of." The Candia Lyceum of the early fifties of 



82 KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

the century gone by was my first love. To her I gave my 
heart, and in return she lavished upon me the best she 
had in her j^ossession, and this same she did for all of us. 
God bless and perpetuate the memory of the Candia 
Lyceum as we older boys and girls remember it. I thank, 
right here and now, my Candia readers for so patiently 
following me along in what I have had to say of the 
churches and schools and the good old Lyceum of the 
dear, good old town, and I hope what I have thus far 
written, may have been of some interest to all the readers 
of my reminiscences of the home town. Having told nij 
story, necessarily imperfect in many ways, of the churches, 
schools and Lyceum, I am now ready to tell as best I may, 
what these institutions of morals, religion, and sound learn- 
ing have done for the children of the town, as seen in 
their individual lives. So boys and girls, friends of my 
youth, and dearer friends of my later life, you will par- 
don me, I am sure, as I call you by the name your mother 
gave you, and tell of souie of the good things you have 
achieved in life. In doing all this I am going to write 
first of the boys and girls who have willingly and gladly 
remained at home on the old farm, and done God's ser- 
vice in bringing peace and happiness to the fathers and 
mothers in their declining days, a debt which none of us 
can ever fully repay however much we may try. " The 
old farm ! " What delightful and almost sacred associa- 
tions it brings back to the children ! 

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, " When I 
bought my farm in Concord I did not know what a bar- 
gain I had in the bluebirds, bobolinks, and thrushes which 
were not charged in the bill. As little did I guess what 
sublime mornings and sunsets I was buying, what reaches 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 83 

of landscape, and what fields and lanes for a tramp." 
Well, it is the old farm, and the boys and girls who have 
remained upon it all these years, of which and of whom 
I shall sing in my next chapter. 



XV 



Governor Bachelder's rustic and cordial invitation to 
the absent sons and daughters of New Hampshire to return 
to the good old Granite State for a week during the present 
summer, and so revisit the scenes of their youth, touches 
the tenderest spot in the memory of my early boyhood. 

" How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, 
And every loved spot which my infancy knew. 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well." 

Dear Governor, I with a whole army of grateful children, 
shall most lovingly accept your call home, and so hasten 
my steps to my native town, to pass those reminiscent 
days intervening between August 15 and 21. I deeply 
regret, however, that Candia under the leadership of her 
selectmen, with that of her other prominent citizens, has 
not moved in this matter, and so have given emphasis to 
the Governor's underscored invitation, by inviting every 
native of Candia to a reunion around the family hearth- 
stone for at least one day during " Old Home Week." 
Candia, God bless her, usually to the front in all good 
things, has not as yet caught on to the resurrected life of 
New Hampshire, as seen in her Home Week. But I well 
know that her latch-string is always hanging outward to 
her absent boys and girls, so without any formal invitation 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 85 

of the town, with grip-sack in hand and the gods willing, 
I am going to land myself in Candia on Thursday evening 
of August 13th, and I am going right into the dear old 
home, without knocking or ringing the door bell. During 
the week which Governor Bachelder designates, I am 
going to revisit the " brambly pastures " where, as a bare- 
foot boy, I went for the cows fifty years ago ; I am going 
down to the well-nigh sacred spot where stood the old red 
schoolhouse in district No. 4. I shall not fail to quench 
my thirst from the old well, neither shall I fail to go to 
the Church on the Hill, and then revisit the cemetery ad- 
joining the church, where lie so many of the precious dead 
of Candia. 

I do not forget that this letter is to be of the boys who 
have stayed at home on the old farm, and who through all 
these years have labored and wrought amidst the scenes 
of their childhood, so that my reference to Governor 
Bachelder's delightful and unique proclamation to the 
absent sons and daughters of his state, is both timely and 
pertinent. Oh, the old home farm ! What endearing asso- 
ciations cluster around it ! I know every field and pasture 
by name, and there is not a by-path or lane on the old 
homestead with which I am not familiar. The " Round- 
about," the " Israel field," the " Woods field," " the 
field by the house," the " Burnt ground," the " Calf pas- 
ture," and the pasture down by the " cross road," are 
among my dearest memories, for they are closely associated 
with the lives of father and mother and brothers and 
sisters, who made life so precious and so attractive to me. 
Well, on the dear old farm at home, there has remained 
all these many years, my brother Thomas Alfred Palmer, 
who has tilled without fret or worry the paternal acres. 



86 KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

While three of his brothers went to college, he remained 
at home, and I am a good deal inclined to believe that he 
got the best of it, by doing so. While the three brothers who 
graduated from college have had an average share of suc- 
cess in life, and have enjoyed an average happiness, still I 
am fully persuaded that the brother at home has been 
just a bit more successful and just a bit more happy than 
that trio of brothers with an A. B. hitched onto their 
names. And why should n't he have been more successful 
and happy, when he has had all nature at his command ? 
With the blue sky overhead, with the blessed sunshine all 
about him, with the birds filling the air with their melody, 
with God's earth to till, why should n't he, I ask again, 
have been supremely happy and successful ? A good story 
for relation's sake must never be spoiled, and so I must 
tell it. 

It is well known in Candia that my brother Thomas A. 
Palmer is a red-hot democrat. He never, never votes a 
ticket other than the democratic ticket. He was born 
in the Jeffersonian faith, and he has always kept it, while 
the other boys of the family somehow, " for better or for 
worse," switched off from their early political training. 
Now for the story. It happened some years ago, after a 
long, uninterrupted republican rule in Candia, the town 
for one year went, very unexpectedly, democratic. When 
the vote was declared on that eventful March meeting-day, 
in the old vestry under the Church on the Hill, an enthusi- 
astic, but at that moment of Waterloo defeat, a supremely 
disgusted and disgruntled republican, working his way in 
hot haste out of the vestry, said to Mr. Palmer, who was 
working his way to the moderator's desk, " Rum did it, 
rum did it, Mr. Palmer," whereupon Mr. Palmer replied, 




A. FRANK PATTEN 



i 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 87 

" I know it, and if our rum had n't given out we would 
have bought the whole republican party." 

I make no apology in beginning this reminiscent story 
of the farm life of Candia, at my old home, for however 
much I love Candia, and I do love her, I love my old 
home the best of all, and so from it, " the dearest spot on 
earth," I begin my reckoning. Mr. Palmer, though never 
having seen the college, is a man well up-to-date in all 
matters of current interest. We college brothers are com- 
pelled to have our wits about us, whenever in conversa- 
tion with the brother at home, or otherwise we get sadly 
" left." Then there is A. Frank Patten, who instead of 
going to college, as he might have done, said, " No, I '11 
stop at home on the old farm, and ' make two blades of 
grass grow where only one has grown before ; ' " and I 
am of the opinion that he chose wisely. " Frank," as 
everybody calls him, has found on the broad acres of his 
father, the late Deacon Patten, the secret and fount of 
happiness ; at any rate, he is always happy, and he never 
fails to make others happy. Intelligent, he takes in all 
that is latest and best in the world of books. Frank well 
understands how to so " tickle the earth with a hoe " that 
she never fails to respond to him. Although Frank has 
removed his household gods to a home of less acreage, yet 
he has land enough to ever keep in memory his first love 
of the old home ; and he has still a delightful home. I 
have often shared its generous hospitality, thanks to him 
and his excellent wife, Mrs. Patten. Frank Patten is one 
of the prominent citizens of Candia, and has largely shared 
in its official life. For several years he was a member of 
the school-board, and for several terms its president. In 
the war of the Rebellion he did his duty by shouldering 



88 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

his musket and going to the front. Mr. Patten is a promi- 
nent Mason, and is one of the founders of his lodge in 
Candia. True to every trust, he passes current wherever 
known for a hundred cents on the dollar. Frank has 
made a success of life by remaining on the old farm. In 
near neighborhood to Frank resides Moses F. Emerson, 
on the familiar acres of his boyhood, and in the very home 
where he was born. His advent into this lower world was 
only a little previous to my coming on to this stage of 
earthly existence, — he was only a few months ahead of 
me, so that I am his close second. " Moses " — Candia 
boys always call each other by their front names, and 
I am glad they do — has been an unusually successful 
farmer. I say has been, for now he, in a sensible way, 
is taking life as it comes, at his leisure. 

Moses F. Emerson well understood how to make a 
dollar out of the land, and he has made it. Even those 
meadows on either side of the " beaver dam," where the 
sun smites down with all its intense scorching heat on a 
summer day in haying-time, he has made even those some- 
what boggy lowlands count on the plus side of his bank 
account. Moses and I were not only schoolmates and 
in the same class in the district school, but he and I were 
schoolmates at Pembroke Academy when his brother, the 
late Rev. John D. Emerson, was its principal. Moses and 
I roomed together in the home of the late Priest Burnham, 
and studied at the same table, at which Governor John 
A. Dix of New York had years before learned his lessons. 
Moses always had a dignified bearing which I never pos- 
sessed, and yet he had a keen sense of wit and humor, 
which would more or less frequently crop out in words in 
spite of himself. 




JOHN P. FRENCH 



XVI 



Emerson says : " A man should have a farm or a me- 
chanical craft for his culture. We must have a basis for 
our higher accomplishment, our delicate entertainments of 
poetry and philosophy in the work of our hands. The 
doctrine of the farm is this : that every man ought to 
stand in primary relations with the work of the world." 

Those who have remained at home in Candia on the 
old farm have kept themselves surrounded by those pri- 
mary relations of which Emerson writes. To go in and 
out of the same doorway during one's entire lifetime ; to 
sleep in the same room for three score years and ten, to 
eat from the same table, to walk and work in the same 
fields for a generation, are privileges that come only to 
the home-boy who remains on the old farm. 

Deacon John P. French well understood from the be- 
ginning the sentiment and poetry, and all that constitutes 
that immaterial wealth which has a value far above the 
quotations of the stock market, and so he has remained 
at home for these years, cultivating the same paternal 
acres which his father did before him. While his two 
brothers have been preaching from the pulpit the Gospel 
of Revelation as seen in the scriptural writings, John P. 
French has been preaching, in an effective way, the gospel 
of the soil ; and by the way, he has been always sure of 
his salary. He has n't been compelled to submit to church 
fairs and donation parties for his livelihood. He has taken 




JESSE W. SARGEANT 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 91 

his text from good old Mother Earth and preached his 
daily sermon while his farm has done the rest. 

Deacon French has made farming pay. He has labored 
long and faithfully and now he is receiving the abundant 
fruits of his labor. I have always been impressed when- 
ever passing the home of Deacon French, with the thrift 
so evidently manifest all about his premises. That door- 
yard ! What a picture of almost immaculate neatness and 
order ! The woodpile is an ornament to the home-grounds. 
Every stick has its place. Deacon French is one of the 
foremost citizens of the town. He has never been known 
to publish his claims in the line of preferment. Modest 
and unassuming, he has proven himself an essential factor 
both in the church and in all social and business life. 
Deacon French has made his score by staying at home. 

Then there is Jesse W. Sargeant, who has continued 
during: all his married life to sit under his own vine and 
fig tree. Upon his ancestral acres he has gotten out of life 
a generous share of solid comfort. Mr. Sargeant knows 
what it is to work and work hard. In his earlier life he 
wrought long and well for others on those stubborn acres 
on the North Road, and the lesson he then received of 
unremitting industry has served him well on his home 
place. Mr. Sargeant has received many official recogni- 
tions from his town. The college could not have easily 
added to Mr. Sargeant's present success in life. The most 
serious thing that I have charged up against Mr. Sar- 
geant is that he came over into my school district and 
captured and took unto himself one of the prettiest girls 
in district No. 4, and this he did in spite of us boys who 
lacked the courage of our convictions. Mr. Sargeant has 
made his count on the old farm and in his domestic life. 



92 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Among the boys J. Lane ^itts stands at the very front. 
A man with a level head, his judgment may be relied 
upon in every instance. J. Lane Fitts never goes off half 
cocked. He never gives his opinion until he has formed 
it upon good and substantial reasons. An excellent pupil 
in the schools, he would necessarily have taken a leading 
rank in any of our New England colleges. But he chose 
to remain at home with his father and mother and minis- 
ter to their happiness and comfort during those last days 
of their life. So Mr. Fitts has lived and breathed in the 
atmosphere of a delightful home for these many years. 
And yet, he was not necessarily a stay-at-home, for when 
the War of the Rebellion had shot its first gun, he left 
father and mother and all else that was dear to him and 
hastened to the conflict, ready to give his life if need be 
for and to the life of the nation. (And there was many 
another Candia boy who armed himself for, and took ac- 
tive part in, that prolonged and terrible struggle for the 
preservation of the Union. Of these brave boys it will 
be my pleasure to speak in a subsequent chapter.) Mr. 
Fitts is not without honor in his own country. He has 
done much for the betterment of Candia. A man of first- 
class ability and of undoubted integrity, he deserves the 
best. Such a man as Mr. Fitts gives character and dig- 
nity to the cultivation of the fields. 

Then there are the Rowes, — Charles, who lives on the 
home place, and his brother Frank, who has a pleasant 
home in the same neighborhood. Both Charles and Frank 
know well how to run a farm and make it pay. Frank 
D. Rowe is one of the leading citizens of the town, and 
he has filled nearly every one of its public positions. At 
one time Mr. Rowe represented his town in the state 




MRS. JESSE W. SARGEANT 



I 



\ 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 93 

legislature. Twice he has made his way across the conti- 
nent, so he is familiar with the geography of the country 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. The Rowes come 
from blood that counts, and it has shown itself in all the 
generations of Rowes. Later on, I shall have more to say 
of them. I have now in mind " Lame Nat," as he was 
familiarly known in Candia. A man of the most con- 
summate wit, — I shall give him a conspicuous place in 
these reminiscences at no late date in a chapter under 
the heading of " Some Quaint Characters of Candia." 

Edmund Smith, on the South Road, is another of the 
boys who has continued to till the broad acres of his 
father ; and by the way, Edmund and his brother Alvah 
were bright pupils in the Candia High School. Mr. Ed- 
mund Smith is one of those well-informed men who keeps 
about his business, without any undue worry or fret. 

And Daniel F. Emerson, while he did not remain on 
the home farm, he purchased the one adjoining, and has 
worked early and late, and made his way on acres that 
have yielded him the returns of a faithful husbandman. 
Of late years, Dan (I must call him " Dan ") has resided 
in Manchester, and so ridden to and from his farm, a 
distance of ten miles each way, during the summer and 
autumn. What morning concerts by the birds Dan must 
have taken in on that early ride to his farm ; and at even- 
ing on his return trip to Manchester, he must have often 
stopped his horse to listen to the whippoorwill's song. 
Dan, as I have previously said, was a boy who was often 
up to mischief, and who delighted in seeing a barnyard 
fight among the " steers " and " cows," but in all his 
maturer manhood, he has given his attention to the real 
work of life. He has bestowed his thought and labor 



94 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

upon the fields, never regretting that he didn't go to 
college. 

And Jonathan Hobbs, who lives on the home place, on 
Walnut Hill, one of the most delightful sites in Candia, 
knew what he was about when he determined that he 
would live and die on the old place. 

It was but a summer or two ago, that I spent an agree- 
able afternoon with Mr. Hobbs at his home. He took me 
out on to the tip of the hill, and showed me the kingdoms 
of the earth. But he did n't say. Fall down and worship 
me, and all shall be yours. Mr. Hobbs makes a gen- 
erous host, and I always enjoy meeting him. George F. 
Patten is another of the sensible Candia boys, who knows 
a good thing when he sees it, and so he has remained at 
home. Until very recently, he has lived in the very same 
house that gave him birth. Now a little removed from the 
early home, he is still happy to register himself in his 
present pleasant Candia home. Had Mr. Patten gone to 
college, he would have made a Phi Beta — but he has 
already secured this honor on the farm, so what more does 
he want ? 

Oh, these home-boys ! It is a delight to write of fchem. 
Why should one wait until the friend is dead, and his 
remains laid away in the graveyard, before a good word 
is spoken of him ? I have known, and so have you, many 
a tear to be shed over the grave of the dej^arted, to whom 
no kind word, it may be, was spoken, while living. Now, 
this side of the grave is the time to catalogue the virtues 
of your friend. And so it is that I write with the greatest 
pleasure of my living friends. But how the home places 
have changed hands in Candia ! As I come to write them 
up, I find only the comparatively few whom I knew as a 




FRANK D. ROWE 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 95 

boy, on the old homesteads. It would be fortunate for the 
American people, could the homes of this country forever 
remain in the possession of ancestral families. The Amer- 
ican people, in their restlessness and desire for change, 
lose much of that supreme wealth found in the sweet asso- 
ciations of the home descending from generation to gene- 
ration. This swapping farms, and " selling out," and " get- 
ting out " is nine times out of ten a losing game. " Stick 
by the old farm ! " is the burden of the song happily re- 
vived by the " Old Home Week," inaugurated by ex- 
Governor Rollins. Governor Rollins has immortalized his 
name through Old Home Week. 

While I as firmly believe as do others, in our schools 
and colleges, yet I am of the decided opinion that many 
a boy goes to t^he college and to the university, who would 
have made a greater success in life had he stayed at home. 
Let the boy and girl understand early in life that " honest 
work, well done," in whatever department of life, is in 
every way honorable. It is Horace Mann who says that 
" because absurd notions descending to us from the worst 
and the weakest of men have created factitious distinc- 
tions between employments, shall the young man, there- 
fore, seek a sphere of life for which he is neither fitted by 
nature nor by culture, and spoil a good cobbler by becom- 
ing a poor lawyer, or commit the double injustice of rob- 
bing the mountain goats of a herdsman to make a faith- 
less shepherd in the Lord's pastures ? Let the young man 
remember there is nothing derogatory in any employment 
that ministers to the well being of the race. It is the 
spirit that is carried into an employment that elevates or 
degrades it. The ploughman who turns the clod may be 
a Cincinnatus or a Washington, or he may be brother to 



96 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

the clod he turus. It is every way creditable to handle 
the yard stick and to measure tape ; the only discredit 
consists in having a soul as short as the stick and as nar- 
row as the tape." 

Honest work, well done, deserves a kingly reward in 
each and every department of life. 

Here is to the home-boys of Candia, and to the home- 
girls of Candia, as well ; may their shadows never grow 
less. There is more than one of us college boys who would 
just love to go back and live with you. " A home and 
country are the charm of life," says Julian, and so say 
we all. 

In the next chapter of these reminiscences I shall begin 
my story of the college boys who have gone out from 
Candia to do their work in their several departments of 
business and professional life. 



XVII 

" A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring : 
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
And drinking largely, sobers us again ! " 

So wrote Pope, and many of the Candia boys took him 
at his word, and went to college, where they drank at the 
very fountain of knowledge. In writing of the Candia col- 
lege boys, I shall not take them in the order of their grad- 
uation. I just enjoy being somewhat irregular, and so 
getting outside of the usual way of doing things. The so- 
called irregularities in life do much in breaking up its dull 
monotony. Objects carefully set in a row lose much of the 
interest they would otherwise have. Not knowing just 
what or who is coming next, keeps one in an expectant 
mood, so I shall not give the slightest attention to the 
chronological order of collegiate graduates from Candia, 
but write of them as they shall come to me by a sort of 
mental or intellectual telegraphy. The only established and 
irrevocable point I have in these " Keminiscences " is : 
that in every instance I must, shall, and will date my reck- 
oning from district No. 4. The " A. B." I now have in 
mind is the Hon. Luther W. Emerson, whose home is at 
125 Gates Avenue, Brooklyn, and whose law office is at 206 
Broadway, New York City. " Lute," as I have already 
said in a previous letter, received his primary education in 
that little red schoolhouse which was, but is not, in district 
No. 4. His preparatory course for the college was had at 



98 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Andover, Mass. Apt at his studies, both in the academy 
and at Dartmouth, he maintained an excellent standing 
during all his preparatory and collegiate course. Emerson, 
upon graduating at Dartmouth in 1862, went to Columbus, 
Ohio, where he taught school for several years, for be it 
known, like many another Candia boy, he was not born 
with " a silver spoon in his mouth," so that by downright 
hard work he was compelled, and fortunately so, to make 
his own way in life. 

As a teacher, Emerson ranked among the first. His 
greatest achievement, however, in the educational world is 
the fact that, in his school work, he fell enthusiastically in 
love with one of his most attractive teachers, whom in a 
persistent, graceful way he won and married. I say in " a 
persistent " as well as in a graceful way, for Lute well 
knew that a " faint heart never won fair lady " — so he 
went in to win, and he did win one of the best of wives. 
Mrs. Emerson has proven herself an essential factor in all 
the business, social, and political life of her husband. From 
Columbus, Ohio, Emerson went in April, 1865, to New 
York City, arriving there just a few days prior to the 
assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In the autumn of 1865, 
he entered, as a student, the law office of Lewis & Cox. 
Mr. Cox was known the country over as " Sunset Cox," a 
man of distinguished legal ability and learning, and one 
who held a front rank among our leading American states- 
men. 

After two years of hard study Emerson was admitted to 
the bar of the State of New York. For a year or so, 
immediately following his admission to the bar, he was a 
clerk in a lawyer's office. Soon after, he secured a position 
in the office of the United States district attorney for the 




MOSES F. EMERSON 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 99 

southern district of New York. Emerson obtained this 
position through Daniel G. Rollins, who was then con- 
nected with the office as assistant, and with whom he had 
been closely associated as a student at Dartmouth. Rol- 
lins, who by the way was a New Hampshire man, was a 
classmate of mine, so that I came to know him intimately 
and well. Daniel G. Rollins became one of the most emi- 
nent lawyers in the country, and was oftentimes interested 
in cases where millions of dollars were involved. He was 
the right-hand man of President Arthur, and it is said, 
wrote many of his state papers. Rollins never forgot his 
friends. Emerson has often said to me that had it not been 
for the encouragement and aid of Rollins, it would have 
been exceedingly difficult for him to have obtained a sure 
foothold at the bar in the great city of New York. 

It was magnanimous of Emerson to pay such tribute to 
Daniel G. Rollins during his lifetime. The most of us 
wait until the friend is dead before we say a good word for 
him. Emerson remained in the district attorney's office for 
several years, having to do all the while with the internal 
revenue branch of the business, and for two years having 
the entire charge of that dejDartment, which work was very 
important to the government. The incumbents of the dis- 
trict attorney's office at that time were the Hon. Samuel G. 
Courtney, Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, afterward in the cab- 
inet of President Grant, and subsequently minister to 
England, and the Hon. Noah Davis, who had been for thirty 
years on the supreme court bench of the state of New York, 
and who was a member of Congress from New York at the 
time of his appointment by President Grant, as United 
States district attorney. 

While Emerson was connected with said office, the most 



100 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

important cases were tried under his management. He 
tried the " Bankers and Brokers" cases of the city, which 
so attracted the attention of the financial world. The most 
eminent lawyers in the country were interested for the 
bankers and brokers. There were Reverdy Johnson of 
Maryland, ex-Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin, ex-Judge 
Bartley of Ohio, and others of equal prominence in the 
profession, against whom the Hon. Noah Davis and Emer- 
son had to make their case, and they did make it. The 
victory they gained for the government was a signal one, 
and it brought Emerson to the forefront of the New York 
Bar. 

That Emerson should have been associated in his early 
practice with such men as Davis and Pierrepont and others 
equally distinguished in the legal profession, was a decided 
compliment to the ability and promise of Emerson as a 
man and a lawyer, and of peculiar advantage to him in 
the practice of his profession. Somewhere in the seventies 
Emerson, together with the late B. B. Foster, defended a 
United States soldiei* stationed at West Point, charged 
with murder. This was Emerson's first criminal case of 
any importance. All his practice up to this time had been 
on the civil side of the law. He was reluctantly drawn 
into the criminal practice, for which he had a dislike, as it 
was out and out foreign to his nature. He was at one time 
assigned by the county court of Kings County to defend a 
barber charged with the murder of a saloonkeeper in the 
city of Brooklyn, obtaining a verdict of manslaughter. 
During the year of 1899, Emerson was prosecuting crimi- 
nals for King's County, charged with all degrees of crime, 
from petty larceny to murder. He obtained the only ver- 
dict during that year of murder in the first degree in that 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 101 

office, which verdict was sustained by the highest court in 
New York, and finally the defendant was electrocuted at 
Sing Sing. Emerson's method and manner of trying these 
cases won the warm commendation of the judges before 
whom he appeared. " Lute," as he is still known in Can- 
dia, has had a busy life, and he is still at it with all the 
vim of his more youthful days, and he has been success- 
ful in his chosen department of labor. Not always gaining 
his point, and yet never defeated, for he had that deter- 
mined will left, which always placed him squarely and 
firmly on his feet. His successes, however, at the bar are 
largely in the majority, and they are successes so pro- 
nounced that they have given him an enviable position 
among the foremost lawyers of the state of New York. 

I say all this in spite of what Emerson once said to a 
friend in answer to the query " if he felt that his position 
at the bar in New York had been successful," when he re- 
plied that he considered any lawyer of years of practice 
successful who had escaped the poorhouse and the peni- 
tentiary. But Lute has done more and better than this, 
for he has one of the pleasantest homes in Brooklyn, and 
instead of the penitentiary, he has the freedom of the 
greater city of New York, where he is so well and favor- 
ably known. And what is still better, he has the freedom 
and run at will of his home-town Candia, for where is the 
man, whatever honors may come to him in an adopted 
home, will not leave them all if need be, to receive the 
greeting, and the benediction, and the scriptural " Well 
done " of the town which gave him birth, and which cared 
for him during all his boyhood and earlier manhood ? 

Luther W. Emerson has frequently been urged by many 
of the leading men of the republican party in Brooklyn 



102 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

to run for political positions of public trust. At one time 
he was a much talked of candidate for Congress from his 
district. But fortunately he has for the most part kept 
out of politics. He has ever kept in mind that " the law 
is a jealous mistress," so he has given his time faithfully 
to his profession. 

It is a pleasure for me to write at this length of Lute, 
for he is a Candia boy, and loves the good old town of his 
nativity with all the ardent affection of his youth. The 
honors that he has scored are not only a credit to him, but 
they are a credit to Candia as well, and I am sure, with- 
out the asking, that Candia will be interested to read of 
the success which the Hon. Luther W. Emerson has 
achieved in life. Candia is indeed rich in the children she 
has sent out into this hustling, bustling world to make 
their own way in life. Her college boys, as I shall show 
in other letters, have measured up well to the best, 
whether found at the bar or in the pulpit, or in the medi- 
cal world or in the educational field. 

So far as I am able to learn, none of the Candia college 
boys have been euchred in the game of life. They may 
not all have made " marches," still they all have made a 
count. They have played their trump cards to advantage, 
and never have they been known to trump their partner's 
trick. All this we shall show in subsequent chapters of 
these reminiscences. Whom of the college boys I shall 
call up next is altogether uncertain, for don't forget, as at 
Dartmouth, I am calling by card, as did those good old 
professors in our day ; so whose name will come out next 
the Lord only knows : you and I don't. So be prepared, 
every " A. B." of you, to answer " Here." This everlast- 
ing uncertainty of things gives a tantalizing interest to all 




LUTHER W. EMERSON 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 103 

expectancy. Of all things that I most dislike is to be set 
down in a row so that everybody will know that I am to 
come next in the count. That college boy of whom I shall 
next write, will be he who shall send me a wireless tele- 
gram. 



XVIII 

Christ and his disciples often went up into the mountain 
to worship — but I have come down from the mountain to 
worship) in this dear old town during what should have 
been Old Home Week in Candia. However, upon the in- 
vitation of Governor Bachelder, I have come home for a 
week without any formal or cordial invitation from the 
mother town, and I am glad I have come, for Candia, in 
every instance, gives a warm welcome to every returning 
son and daughter of hers. To renew one's life, one must 
by a natural law get himself back to the sources of life. 
The home never fails to unburden the years, and so they 
give me back my youth. To return to the starting point 
in one's reckoning is to make all the surer our arithmetic. 
I wrote a few months ago a letter to '* The News," and it was 
all about Candia, but I must write of her again at the 
risk of repeating myself, for she is a town of so many 
attractions that her virtues cannot all be told in the short 
space of a single communication in the columns of " The 
Derry News." As I am here right upon the ground of 
which I am writing my " Reminiscences of Candia," it is 
sufficient reason that I, for this our New Hampshire 
Home Week, drop the logical order of my more or less 
historical story, and write in a more general way of the 
town, and of the jolly time I am having, and enjoying to 
the full. 

" Charmingfare " was the original name of Candia, a 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 105 

name in happy harmony with the sentiment and poetry 
attaching to her unsurpassed site, and to her varied and 
exquisite scenery. While she is not situated as is Rome 
on her seven hills, she can boast of her five hills, where 
from the lofty heights of each, may be seen on every side 
a world of rarest beauty. It was on Friday of last week, 
a day well nigh perfect, in an atmosphere so clear that 
one easily took in the long out-lying distances, and with a 
sky so blue and so near that one felt himself in very touch 
with the heavens, that I had that enjoyable ride with 
Henry Moore, Esq., a prominent citizen of the town, in 
his easy-going carriage, behind the surest and fleetest of 
horses. Sheriff Henry Moore possesses in a large way the 
grace and social nature of his father, the late John Moore, 
Esq., so that my company on that queen of mornings was 
all that one could wish. The ride was up High Street, and 
my song, all along the way, was one continuous interroga- 
tion and exclamation. What an extended view was that on 
every side ! To the west was seen that long chain of moun- 
tains extending from Kearsarge, on the right, to Mount 
Wachusett in Massachusetts, on the left. Then there came 
in view that gem of lakes, the Massabesic. From the high- 
est point of High Street is seen Patten's Hill, Tower Hill, 
Walnut Hill, and that hill of hills on the North Road. To 
ascend either one of these lofty heights, is to take a long 
step heavenward. Since arriving here on Thursday of last 
week I have been on the " go " each day from the early 
morning until late at evening time. In passing, I should 
say that I stopped over one night in coming down from 
the mountains, with my brother Alanson Palmer, at his 
attractive summer residence on the camp-grounds at 
Hedding. 



106 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

The o:rounds are so familiar to most of the readers of 
" The News," that I need not delay by describing them. 
The grounds are nestled among the pines, which bear heal- 
ing in the softening fragrance they emit. The walks in 
and about the grounds are especially inviting and unique. 
The Hedding camp-meeting grounds have become especially 
dear to the Methodist brothers and sisters through years 
of occupancy, for there it is that " souls have been born 
into the kingdom," and where the backslider has been 
reclaimed and returned to the fold. But the Methodist 
camp-meeting is not what it formerly was. Now the indi- 
vidual life grows up into a Christian life, as naturally as 
the bud becomes the flower in the sunshine. The sudden 
conversion is of the past. The world is more largely 
recognizing now than ever before, that religious thought 
in these later years is being developed and inwrought into 
the individual life by that law which is known as natural 
growth. 

After my brief stop-over at Hedding I made Candia, the 
home of my birth, where, since my arrival, I have visited 
every nook and corner of the old farm. I have been down 
to the pasture where, as a boy, I drove the cows in the 
early morning for their day's grazing. I have sat upon 
the steps of the old schoolhouse, and imagined myself a 
child again with my primer and spelling-book in hand. 
I have drank from the old well, and roamed again 
through the old paternal home, visiting every room with 
which I was so familiar when a barefoot lad so happy and 
free from care, not forgetting to delay a brief while in 
the little sleeping-room " where the sun came peeping in 
at morn." 

Oh, these August days ! How delightful they are ! Can- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 107 

dia, under these deep blue skies, never seemed so fair and 
so enticing to me as now. It is somewhere told how two 
boys once telling each other with glowing, loving enthusi- 
asm of the attractions of their homes, the one said " my 
home is situated right in sight of the green fields, with 
the pastures and the woods a little beyond, and close by 
is the running brook." " Well," said the second boy, 
"my home is situated within sight of the delightful 
mountains, and within touch of those first temples of God, 
the groves, at the junction of two roads, with the birds 
singing on every side, and then," he added, as he 
pointed his finger to the zenith, *' my home is situated 
right under the middle of heaven." And so with these 
Candia homes — they are all situated right under the 
middle of heaven. It is always so delightful to revisit 
this good old home town ! She is the mother who never 
disowns her children. My entire visit has been enriched 
by a thousand sacred memories, and in meeting the few 
friends of the earlier day. Among the many pleasant 
calls I have made, the one made on Mr. Austin Cass was 
especially enjoyable. Mr. Cass, now nearly eighty-six 
years old, retains the full vigor of heart, soul, and mind, 
though somewhat enfeebled in body. An omnivorous 
reader all his life, his conversation is always instructive. 
One of the most prominent citizens of the town, he has 
been an important factor in shaping and promoting her 
interests. In a subsequent chapter of " Reminiscences of 
Candia," I shall write more at length of Mr. Cass. 

Another enjoyable call made was that on Mrs. Holt of 
East Candia, who is the president of the school committee. 
During the six years of her official school life she has 
wrought earnestly and intelligently for the schools under 



108 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

the supervision of the committee. Mrs. Holt has informed 
herself at every available point, both as to methods and 
subject matter of instruction. She has brought to the 
schools of Candia her personal experience in teaching, 
with all that enthusiasm and love which she possesses for 
that higher practical education which makes men and 
women. 

Yes, my visit to Candia has been to me a delightful one, 
made all the more delightful by the generous hospitality 
of Mr. and Mrs. A. Frank Patten. Their home is always 
my home whenever in Candia. They invariably give me 
the freedom of their house. There I come and go when- 
ever I please. I have had occasion heretofore to write of 
the unbounded hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Patten. As 
hosts they are unsurpassed. Talk of Rome on her seven 
hills as much as you will, give me Candia in preference to 
the Eternal City. 

In my next letter I am to tell what I know of Sam 
Beane, better known throughout New England as the 
Rev. Dr. S. C. Beane. 



XIX 

By way of preface to this letter, I must say a further 
word of my Candia visit, so full and running over with 
the old hospitality. In the first place the skies so blue and 
the atmosphere so genial and inviting, that all nature in 
her best mood was my attendant, so that I found an added 
charm to my stay in the pleasant and attractive home of 
Mr. and Mrs. A. Frank Patten, and then my walks and 
rides about town were a re-living of the former days. Not 
only the living friends came to me with outstretched wel- 
coming hands, but those so peacefully sleeping in their 
narrow home in the graveyard, gave me welcome. Talk as 
we may, the so-called dead are our companions still. 

My ten days in Candia were review days, so that I had 
my earlier lesson over again. Among the boys who came 
trooping back at my call was Sam Beane, now the Rev. 
Samuel C. Beane, D. D., of Newburyport, Mass. Every- 
body in Candia knew Sam as a boy, for he was one of 
those bright, active lads, who never failed to make his 
presence felt in the most agreeable way. There was always 
that keen humor, and delightful charm in his conversation 
that drew about him a host of admiring listeners. Sam 
could always tell a story for all that it was worth, and 
then add to it something of his own wit and genius which 
gave fascinating emphasis to the point to be illustrated. 

Samuel C. Beane was born an optimist. He has always 
looked upon the bright side of everything. It has been 



110 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

with him, and is still, the rainbow instead of the cloud. 
He lives upon the promises, and not upon the dire threat- 
enings of the more orthodox days. Quick of perception, 
he readily catches sight of the truth to be demonstrated. 
No one has ever been compelled to shoot an idea into the 
brain of Sam Beane. He at once catches on to all that is 
best in the world of mind and in the world of soul, so 
that the latest truths are always his. As a pupil in the 
schools from the primary up through the college, he was 
invariably among the foremost. Never satisfied with 
present attainments, he has been all these years reach- 
ing out for newer developments in the intellectual and re- 
ligious world. His early religious training had upon it the 
stamp of a somewhat bigoted orthodoxy, from which he 
broke away in his early manhood, for to such an inquir- 
ing mind as has Mr. Beane, there could be no chain so 
strong as to bind him to the ground. He at an early age 
saw the reason of things. With an ardent and loyal love 
for father and mother, and for family ties, yet such as he 
could never accept a faith, simply because those gone be- 
fore him had accepted a certain belief without a doubt. 
Mr. Beane has never been known to pin his faith to a 
dogma. He has done his own thinking, and never has he 
hesitated to think at large. He has an extended horizon, 
so that his vision is not measured or limited by any nar- 
row circle. His college life was a prophesy of the man he 
is. In all his scholarly life, he has met and studied men 
as well as books. Life to him is a reality and not a theory, 
and he has met it in a practical, helpful way. As a min- 
ister he has filled no other than important positions. His 
first settlement as a pastor was in Chicopee, Mass., and 
then followed his pastorates at Salem, Mass., and at Con- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 111 

cord in this state, and then at Newburyport, where he 
is still in service. 

Mr. Beane occupies a front rank in the Unitarian world. 
He is one of the leading clergymen in his denomination, 
and distinguished throughout all New England in the 
church of his choice. With all the honors that have come 
to him in his profession, he never forgets to meet men as 
a man. Mr. Beane has nothing of the " cloth " about 
him. His religion has never shut him out from the world. 
He is not afraid to "eat with publicans and sinners." 
He accepts the world as it is. No confession of sin startles 
him, for he sees beneath it all — the real man. His arti- 
cles of faith may be reduced to one, namely : That God 
is the loving father of his children, and in spite of the 
fact that most of them stumble and fall at times by the 
way, still does the one God love them none the less. Mr. 
Beane believes in men and women, and that they have 
certain just rights to a salvation that finally saves to the 
uttermost. It is always a pleasure to meet Samuel C. 
Beane. One invariably goes out from his presence with a 
more hopeful view of life. 

It is of the man, however, that I most desire to write, a 
man of the most unbounded hospitality and good fellow, 
ship. He has not an ambition that he is not willing and 
ready to share with his fellow — not a jealousy, save that 
of good works. His life is as open as the day. It was at 
a meeting of the Candia Club two years ago in Boston, 
when a lady friend who had not seen Mr. Beane for many 
years, said to him, " Well, I never thought when you were 
with me in school, that you would become a minister," — 
the highest compliment that could have been paid him, 
for the saying of the lady friend revealed what was the 



112 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

fact, that Mr. Beane was a boy among boys, as he is now 
a man among men. He has never been known to adver- 
tise himself as being unlike the majority of the human 
kind. 

In Candia, Sam Beane is known as a jolly good fellow, 
and as bright as they make them. Every one in his native 
town is more than glad to welcome him to the old home. 
The Rev. Samuel C. Beane, D.D., of Newburyport, Mass., 
is the same Sam Beane in Candia as he was when a lad in 
his teens. As a man he is greater than his " Reverend " 
or his " D. D." His profession and his honorary titles 
haven't unmanned him. It is "Sam" still with Candia 
people, and I am sure that it will always be with the home 
town the same Sam Beane. In that simple name there is 
all honor, well earned. Recently Mr. Beane has received 
and accepted a call to the First Unitarian church at Law- 
rence, Mass., at an increased salary. 

Then there is the Rev. Frank Dudley, D.D., who grad- 
uated with Mr. Beane in the same class at Dartmouth. 
Candia people always recognize in the Rev. Joseph Frank 
Dudley, D. D., the Frank Dudley of years agone. How 
well and with what pleasure I remember Frank ! He was 
a schoolmate of mine and my teacher as well, and my col- 
lege mate for two years — he graduating two years in ad- 
vance of me at Dartmouth. It is remembered to this day 
in Candia how Mr. Dudley, when a young man, was a clerk 
in Blake's store in Raymond, and subsequently he clerked 
it in Deacon Dudley's store at the village. Men and women 
alike, invariably did their trading with Frank when this 
was possible, for he was so agreeable and entertaining 
when showing his goods. He always had a story to tell 
that fitted the occasion. Frank Dudley has always had a 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 113 

marked individuality of liis own. JIc was as a boy, no 
other than himself, and as a man he has preserved his 
identity. To get ahead of him one had to have his wits 
about him, and even then, he was likely to come out second 
best. 

I well remember at an evening entertainment given by 
the late Mrs. Coffin Moore when Frank Dudley was one 
of the number, and at the time teaching in distri(;t No. 
4, Mrs. Moore said to him in a jolly, bantering way, 
" O Mr. Dudley, I saw you Monday morning as you passed 
my house making your way to school from your village 
home, and it was half past nine o'clock." " Yes, I remem- 
ber," replied Mr. Dudley ; " you were in the doorway shak- 
ing your table cloth, having just been to breakfast." Mr. 
Dudley was a wit of the first order. He saw the ludicrous 
side of things, as well as their more serious side. lie fre- 
quently came to my room when in college, where he never 
failed after his cheery "good morning," to relate some 
anecdote which made the day all the brighter and all the 
more welcome. 

Mr. Dudley early proved himself an effective speaker, 
and never did he fail to hold the closest attention of his 
audience. Ilis incisive way of putting things always 
counted. While as a clergyman he has distinguished him- 
self, the bar has lost one of its most brilliant advocates in 
his choice of a profession. Mr. Dudley's ministry has been 
largely in the West, and while I know that he has occu- 
pied some of the more prominent pulpits west of the Mis- 
sissippi, I am not familiar in detail with his work in the 
several churches of which he has been pastor. It is safe to 
say, however, that he ranks among the first of the clergy. 

It is now something over forty years ago since I saw Mr. 



114 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Dudley — still, I shall never forget that enjoyable ride had 
in the cars with him from Candia to Manchester in the so 
long ago. He was then brim full of pleasantries that told. 
In our many conversations he and I frequently discussed 
that most momentous of all subjects, " love." Whenever I 
would stoutly insist, that if I ever married it would be that 
I intensely loved some pretty girl, and that she gave me in 
return the full measure of her love, he would facetiously 
reply, " O Wils, what nonsense ! " And then he would add, 
" When you and I marry it will most likely be on purely 
business principles ; " and yet Mr. Dudley, when he came 
to seek a wife, it was all through an overshadowing love, 
and through that heart-love of his, he won all to himself a 
wife who has been to him his helpmeet in his pleasant 
home, and in his public ministry. Joseph Frank Dudley, 
now the D.D., has added to the good name of Candia, 
and the town is all the richer for his adoption. 

Mr. Dudley was a native of Raymond ; but all his ear- 
lier manhood was lived in Candia, and Candia gladly in- 
cludes him in the roll-call of her children. Through these 
reminiscences of the college boys of the dear old town I am 
brought face to face and heart to heart with those who 
climbed with me " the steep where Fame's proud temple 
shines afar." How delightful it is to revel in the past, 
while we live in the present, keeping close watch of the 
future ! So recently from my visit in Candia, I still feel 
her warm breath upon me, while her words of welcome are 
yet making vibrant all the air about. In these writings of 
my native town, I am living over again the happy, joyous 
days of my youth. A new song has been put into my 
mouth, or rather the old song has been revived. I am so 
glad that Candia has now an Old Home Week association 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 115 

the immediate object of which is to bring all the children, 
resident and non-resident, together in the summer of 1904. 
The official management of the association gives assurance 
of its success ; for its officers, from Mr. J. Lane Fitts, 
its president, down, are representative men of Candia. 
" Come home, come home," is now to be the loving, urgent 
invitation of Candia to her children. If it were not too 
frequently repeating myself, I should end each letter of 
these " Reminiscences " with " God bless Candia." I love 
her, and I love those who love her, and in the words of 
" Ann Elizy," " I even love those who love those who love 
Candia." A real love forges an endless chain in the world 
of the affections — and how delightful it all is I 



XX 



When a pupil in the Candia High School, the late James 
H. Eaton often told me of his plans in pursuing a course 
of study in one of the State Normal schools of Massachu- 
setts ; and I well remember that Sunday morning at the 
Church on the Hill nearly half a century ago, when "Jim," 
as the boys all called him, said to me that he was soon to 
enter the Normal School at Westfield, Mass., under the 
principalship of the well-known educator, Mr. Dickerson. 
James Henry Eaton, from his early youth up, was am- 
bitious to make the most of himself. He was one of the 
brightest pupils in the public schools of his native town. 
As a boy he saw no idle moments. When not at work at 
manual labor, he was at his books. In all his school ex- 
perience he paid his way through unremitting industry. 
As a pupil in the Westfield Normal School, he stood 
among the very first of his class. After graduating with 
the honors of his school, he for several years was a teacher 
in the public schools of Massachusetts, and as a teacher 
he was a pronounced success. James H. Eaton had an 
analytical mind, and so it was that he taught the reason 
of things. He reasoned that into the brain of his pupils 
which had first been reasoned into his own brain. The 
boys and girls under his instruction, caught much of the 
inspiration of the teacher. Eaton believed in the effi- 
ciency and democracy of our public school system. He saw 
in it net only the continued life of the individual, but the 




JAMES HENRY EATON 



i 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 117 

continued life of the American people as a nation. So his 
teaching was always in keeping with the philosophy of all 
that is best in the world of ethics. Mr. Eaton was for 
several years principal of one of the public schools in 
Lawrence, Mass., his adopted city. His rank as an in- 
structor was that of one of the leading educators in the 
Bay State. After leaving the schools he became an im- 
portant factor in the business interests of Lawrence. As- 
sociating himself in an active way in her street railways 
and in her banking institutions, he soon proved himself a 
power in all that had to do with the welfare of the city 
he so much loved. For several years, and up to the time 
of his death, he was treasurer of one of the savings banks 
in Lawrence. 

As a financier Mr. Eaton was regarded among the first. 
He saw things clearly from the start, so that he was never 
compelled to take a backward step. Men and women of 
all ranks and grades in life, sought his advice, and he 
gave it cheerfully. He was a helper and leader in ever}^ 
good cause. He left nothing undone for the city of Law- 
rence. His love for the home of his adoption, which was 
so continuously manifest, and the ability he evinced in 
promoting her interests, made him for two consecutive 
terms mayor of Lawrence. As the city's chief executive 
he earned in a marked way the cordial and enthusiastic 
approval of his constituency. It is speaking within bounds 
that during his two terms of official rule as mayor, Law- 
rence had never before experienced such a healthful growth. 
Mayor Eaton ever kept a watchful eye upon what was 
best for Lawrence. With the courage of his convictions, 
he dared to act, whatever might be the opposition. It was 
enough for him to know that he was right. A prominent 



118 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

member of his church, he was always among the first to 
advance her interests. Mayor Eaton so endeared himself 
to all the people of Lawrence, that the entire city was a 
mourner at his grave. It was Judge Stone who said, that 
" we know not where to look to find one to fill Mayor Ea- 
ton's place." And this was substantially the saying of all 
Lawrence. My remembrances of James H. Eaton, both 
in Candia High School and at Pembroke Academy, are 
altogether pleasant. At the academy he was a universal 
favorite, and especially was he all this, among the girls. 
I shall never forget when he was a pupil in Pembroke 
Academy, how two of the prettiest girls in the school 
became enamored of him — the one whom he afterward 
made his wife, and the other, who afterward became the 
wife of his brother, the late Charles Eaton. It was on 
the closing evening of the spring term of the academy in 
1853, when the late Kev. John D. Emerson, its principal, 
made the boys, in a good-natured way, say a word at the 
closing festival. I have entirely forgotten the little speech 
I made, but the toast or sentiment that I offered to one of 
the fairest girls of the academy, I shall never forget. I 
reproduce it after so many years, with no little pride. The 
sentiment was the following : — 

" Here 's to one of the fairest girls of the academy ; 
May she never be consumed, although she may be Eaton." 

Mrs. James Henry Eaton will excuse me, I am sure, 
for telling this tale out of school. The entire private and 
public life of the late Mayor James Henry Eaton reflects 
distinguished credit upon the city of Lawrence, while it 
adds new lustre to the fair name of Candia. And here, I 
may very naturally and properly write of Mayor Eaton's 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 119 

brother, Mr. Eben Eaton, who is now living hale, hearty, 
and ha23py in his pleasant home on High Street. "Eb," 
as they all call him to this day, in spite of his honors and 
his years, and he is still young, right in face of his years, 
is one of the j oiliest and brightest of men, and he has a 
wife ( that same Lucinda French, who was a pupil in the 
Candia High School ) who is just as bright as he is — the 
two make a brilliant, sparkling span. The sun is always 
shinins: wherever Mr. and Mrs. Eben Eaton are to be 
found, and should there happen to be a cloud in the skies 
" no larger than a man's hand," one may feel sure that the 
rainbow, with all its glad promise, is soon to make its ap- 
pearance. It is only little more than a week ago, that I 
sat at the hospitable and well laden table of Mr. and Mrs. 
Eaton in their attractive home on High Street, and I was 
delighted as the keen wit and pleasantries of mine host 
and hostess were showered upon me. Well, as I was say- 
ing, " Eb " is one of the jolliest and brightest of men. In 
all his private and public life, he has proven himself up 
to date. For twenty years was he sheriff, and at one time 
a member of the New Hampshire State Legislature, and 
later on a member of the New Hampshire State Constitu- 
tional Convention, and besides, " Eb" has held many other 
official positions of the town ; but Eben Eaton, be it re- 
membered, has deserved all the honors that Candia has 
bestowed on him. A born democrat, in the primary sig- 
nification of that term, he meets men and women " on the 
level." He has nothing of the starched-goods quality 
about him. He is a man among men. A republican in 
his political preferences, and yet with lots of friends 
among the democrats. My earliest remembrance of "Eb" 
is of the boy who could beat the snare drum in such 



120 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

lively, rhythmical measure, and who could so uniquely 
execute the " double-shuffle " on town-meeting day od the 
stone steps of the Church on the Hill. Eben Eaton never 
got left in any of the manly sports of the boys, and he 
has never been left in all the more serious sports of riper 
manhood. 

My recent call on Mr. and Mrs. Eaton gave pleasing 
emphasis to my recent visit in Candia. How the Candia 
boys and girls crowd upon my memory as I write these 
" Reminiscences." They come to me with all the fresh- 
ness and fragrance of youth. 

" The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; " 

" But you, boys and girls of my native town, 
Shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds." 



XXI 

In writing of my brother, the late Albert Palmer, I come 
to him with all that love and affection generated and fos- 
tered in the dear old paternal home, when father and 
mother and brothers and sisters made up the happy family 
group. Only two years my senior, Albert and I in early 
childhood and in our earlier manhood were much to- 
gether. We had our plays in common with each other, 
and the sorrows and griefs of our boyhood days came to 
us both alike. We had no secrets apart from each other. 
In those days long gone by, we went and came together ; 
so, most naturally do I write of him with that affectionate 
love and with that family pride which are so eminently 
due a member of the same household with myself. These 
broken family circles, how in sweetest memory they come 
back to all of us ! The " vacant chair " is the sad refrain 
of nearly every home, the world over. And yet, those 
gone before are with us still. While we may not clasp 
the vanished hand, and hear the voice that is still, we are 
all the same within reach of those who have gone up and 
on into that clear, upper atmosphere where dwell the im- 
mortals. And so it is that I write of Albert in his very 
presence. 

Of a keen intellectual perception, and of a nervous tem- 
perament, Albert Palmer was always doing something. 
A ceaseless activity was the underscored law of his being. 
In the schools from the primary up through the college, 



122 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

he invariably stood among the very first of his class. At 
Dartmouth he maintained a high rank in scholarship 
throughout his entire college course, as he had done in 
his preparatory studies at Phillips Academy, Andover, 
Mass. Soon after graduating at Dartmouth he was elected 
tutor by the faculty of the college, but did not accept the 
proffered position. Albert was a favorite with the college 
faculty from President Lord down through the whole list 
of professors, and this on account of his ill health at times, 
as well as his scholarship. Dr. Lord, the venerable Presi- 
dent, always evinced an especial interest in Albert's 
health, and would often say to him, " Palmer, I have two 
horses in the stable, and the use of either of them you 
can have at your pleasure, for a horse-back ride." Albert 
frequently went to Dr. Lord's office for a word of encour- 
agement and assurance when discouraged and somewhat 
moody from illness. 

It was on one of these occasions, when my brother 
was particularly down-hearted from being so frequently 
"under the weather," that Dr. Lord said to him in a 
humorous way, "Ah, Palmer, you remind me of the Apos- 
tle Paul — you die daily." Albert always retained a deep 
love for his Alma Mater and for that old-time faculty. He 
loved Hanover for its unique situation, and for its pic- 
turesque surroundings. There was no nook or corner in 
or about Hanover with which he was not familiar. His 
lone solitary walks gave him all material things for his 
companions. His love of nature was akin to worship. A 
brilliant sunset was to him more than a rainbow of prom- 
ise, while the sunrise was his delight. He roamed the 
fields and the woods, as great highways cast up by the 
infinite hand. Albert was in full sympathy and in deep- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 123 

est love with all that is most beautiful in this world of 
exquisite beauty. I remember well how frequently he 
would come in from a walk, all aglow with nature's best. 
A tree by the roadside was to him a living, sentient being. 
With it he talked, and had sweet communion. Those 
English elms in front of his Candia home are of his own 
setting. " Woodman, spare that tree " was his favorite 
song. 

No one surpassed Albert in his love for his home town. 
The last time he ever spoke in Candia was at the celebra- 
tion of the remodeled " Church on the Hill." It proved his 
farewell word to the good old town — and how fitting it 
was that he should then and there assure the Candia 
friends of his great love for them, and as a final request 
ask that he might never be forgotten by them! In that 
delirium of pneumonia of which he died, among his last 
words were those of his dear old home in Candia. Yes, 
Albert loved Candia, and Candia loved him. After grad- 
uating at Dartmouth in 1858, in the same class with the 
Rev. Drs. Beane and Dudley, he taught for some little time 
in Arlington, Mass., and in the Boston Latin School, and 
with marked success. Albert had the power in an unusual 
degree, of infusing his pupils with much of his own enthu- 
siastic life. He got near to those under his instruction, so 
near that he breathed upon them. After leaving the schools 
he became interested in the ice business with Nathan B. 
Prescott, now a resident of Derry. He and Mr. Prescott 
had known each other intimately and well from boyhood, 
and the friendship that finally came to exist between them 
was that of brothers, so he went into business under the 
pleasantest and under the most favorable auspices. In the 
ice business, Albert was the same active, impetuous man 



124 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

that he was in the schools. Into whatever work he did, he 
threw his whole intense being. He put things in italics, so 
that every one could easily render his meaning. Quick to 
see the point, he aimed straight for it. In college he was 
equal to any emergency that might arise. 

I well remember that one of his classmates when in col- 
lege, brought down from his home vacation in Vermont a 
parcel of home comforts with a sentiment or line written 
on each, which were to be distributed to a few of the class 
of '58, and to which an answer was to be returned. Albert 
was given a bunch of matches sent by " Mary," on which 
was written, " Matches are made in heaven." To this Al- 
bert responded as follows : — 

"Dear Mary : — 

" Matches are made in heaven, you say, 
And this you said in mirth, 
But a match with you, I swear, 
Would be a heaven on earth." 

Albert Palmer, although he did not always succeed in 
securing the object he had in view, yet it was very seldom 
that he made an out and out failure. He always somehow 
managed to get there. For four years he was a prominent 
member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 
and for three years he was as prominent a member of the 
Massachusetts State Senate. In both departments of the 
Massachusetts State Legislature, he held a leading posi- 
tion. He was invariably chairman of some of the most 
important legislative committees. As a speaker he was 
regarded both in the House and in the Senate as one of the 
most brilliant and most effective. He it was who caused 
the vote of censure of Charles Sumner passed by a pre- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 125 

vious legislature, to be rescinded and blotted out from the 
state record. His fame as a speaker was such throughout 
Massachusetts, that he lacked but one vote of being the 
orator to pronounce the eulogy on the life and character 
of Wendell Phillips — George Williaiji Curtis finally re- 
ceiving the majority vote. 

In 1881 Albert was elected mayor of Boston, which posi- 
tion he held for one term. The address he made at the 
time of his inauguration as chief executive of Boston was 
one of his ablest efforts. His work as mayor of Boston 
resulted in not a few substantial improvements to the city, 
the chief of which was the securing and laying out of 
Franklin Park. While mayor, he delivered in Faneuil 
Hall on Decoration Day, the address before the Grand 
Army boys, and it was one of the most brilliant efforts of his 
life. Wendell Phillips, who was present at the time, ap- 
proached my brother at the close of his memorable address, 
and taking him by the hand said, " Mr.' Palmer, Edward 
Everett never did better." This same address I heard him 
deliver in New York City a year or two later in Cooper 
Institute, before a packed audience, holding the closest 
attention of his hearers for an hour and a half, not even 
once referring to his paper during the entire evening. 

As a speaker Albert Palmer was among the most bril- 
liant of orators. On the platform there was a peculiar 
charm in his whole manner of delivery. And he was just 
as brilliant and taking in his personal conversation. At an 
evening entertainment he drew about him those present 
through his remarkable conversational gift. Somewhat 
superlative it may be in his conversation, yet his ready 
flow of language and his pictured form of words always 
gave him a ready hearing. We, the brothers, kept quiet. 



126 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

" per necessitate," whenever Albert took the floor. My 
brother was during his entire lifetime a reader of our best 
authors and speakers. He was a great admirer of Webster 
and Choate. While a pupil at Phillips Academy he walked 
from Andover, Mass., to Boston, that he might hear Dan- 
iel Webster speak in Faneuil Hall. Choate he read and 
reread many times over. He never tired in quoting from 
Choate's eulogy on Daniel Webster, delivered at Dart- 
mouth in the summer of 1853, a eulogy which is not sur- 
passed in the English language, in its elegant and eloquent 
diction. Holmes was one of his favorite authors. While 
mayor of Boston the city entertained Princess Louise, so 
that Albert was privileged to act as the honored host. I 
have heard him relate with much satisfaction how the prin- 
cess, the royal guest on his right, in earnest conversation 
with him sugared in a moment of forgetfulness his coffee 
with her own dainty fingers, and then immediately begged 
his pardon for it. ' Whereupon my brother immediately re- 
plied, " I sincerely thank you for this sweet way to roy- 
alty." 

I have no apology to offer for thus writing so fully and 
so positively of the late Albert Palmer — for be it remem- 
bered that he was my brother and is my brother still. He 
was the very center of attraction in the paternal home, 
and this same drawing and magnetic influence that he 
exerted there, he displayed in all his private and public 
life. He drew about him friends from far and near. His 
personality was always felt. He always took a pride in 
the home of his youth. With a loyal love for father and 
mother and for brothers and sisters, he felt himself espe- 
cially at home wherever the Palmers dwelt. It was he who 
urged my brother Alanson and myself to pursue a college 




ALBERT PALMER 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 127 

course of study, and never shall I forget how on that 
morning in the spring of 1854, as I was starting for Atkin- 
son Academy to begin my preparatory studies for the col- 
lege, he said, " Wilson, having once put your hands to the 
plough, never look back." Albert was not only ambitious 
for himself, but he was ambitious for us brothers as well. 
He frequently feared that we should fail when we ought to 
succeed ; so it was that he kept his eye closely upon Alan- 
son and myself while in college. Well, Alanson and I, if 
the truth must be told, did n't make as brilliant a record 
as he did at Dartmouth, still we got through somehow and 
secured our A. B. Albert, however, was a great help and 
inspiration to us in all our student life. It happened that 
he was class orator over the grave of mathematics at the 
close of his sophomore year — and it goes without saying, 
that his oration was a pronounced success. Singularly 
enough, it so happened that I was elected class orator over 
the grave of mathematics, at the close of my sophomore 
year. Albert, I remember, got nervous over the matter, 
fearing I would make a " flunk " at dead of night before 
that big audience on Hanover common. So fearful and 
nervous was he of the result, that he could not be pre- 
vailed upon to be one of the audience, but he was the first 
one to congratulate me on so well delivering my oration. 
I mention these side facts to show how interested he 
was in all that pertained to the family. Yes, a good 
brother and true, and a good man and true in all the as- 
pirations and work of life, Albert Palmer has brought 
credit and honor to himself and to Candia, a town which 
he ever held in sweet remembrance. 



XXII 

It is the unexpected that lends a peculiar interest to all 
narrative writing. It may not be quite logical and in ac- 
cordance with the best usage to break in upon the thread 
of the story being told. Yet there is a certain fascination 
about such irregularity in a series of written communica- 
tions, that at times I find well-nigh irresistible. While it 
is mathematically true that "a straight line is the shortest 
distance between any two given points," yet to me there 's 
no little pleasure in occasionally leaving the direct road, 
and going round by " Robbin Hood's barn " to reach the 
point of destination. There is always a charm to be found 
along the winding serpentine way, from the fact that 
therein is many an avenue all unseen, and the more greatly 
enjoyed when approached, because heretofore it lay in the 
region of the unknown. It is, indeed, the unexpected that 
gives impetus and zest to life. Anything is allowable, if 
it shall serve to break up the dull monotony of doing 
things. 

So it is that I leave for the time being the classic 
shades of Dartmouth and its Candia graduates, that I 
may write of those quaint characters of the town, who 
were so well known years ago by every man, woman, and 
child in Candia. These queer people were not tramps. 
They did not roam the world over, swearing all the while 
that the world owed them a living. They were not promo- 
ters of strikes or trade unions. They were willing other 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 129 

people should work if they so chose. As for them, they 
were satisfied to become wanderers not in a strange land, 
but in a land made familiar to them by their frequent 
goings up and down the country highways. 

Pete Varnum ! Good old soul ! I am sure there is no 
one in Candia who does not have a pleasant remembrance 
of Pete. Of erect form, standing something more than six 
feet in his shoes, he made an impressive figure. It is told 
by those who are supposed to know, that Pete had had a 
romantic and somewhat unfortunate love experience. At 
any rate, he did not win the object of his early affections, 
so he determined to tie up all his earthly goods in a hand- 
kerchief, and bidding good-by to woman's love, set out 
on the road and see the world for himself and study 
human nature. Pete's wandering life was really a beauti- 
ful tribute to the love of the woman he so nearly wor- 
shiped — for he reasoned thus : When her love fails me 
all fails me. When she is gone, all is gone. Nothing can 
be left me but to roam my little world o'er and o'er again. 
Without her, all is blank — And Pete reasoned a good 
deal as other men would have reasoned had they been 
defeated in the world of love. 

Pete in his younger days must have been " a good 
catch." In manner and grace of conversation he told of 
better days. While shabbily dressed, still there was some- 
thing in his personal make-up that commended him to the 
more fashionable world. Pete always wore a tall hat, al- 
though somewhat battered and beaten by the weather, for 
he invariably made his rounds in spite of wind and storm. 
There was no one who did not like to see Pete " coming 
up the road." His cheery greeting never failed to find a 
cordial response by all the neighbors along his way. The 



130 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

good house- wife gave him in every instance the best her 
table afforded, and would have gladly asked him to have sat 
at her table, had it not been that Pete did not practically be- 
lieve in immersion nor even in sprinkling, so the bathroom 
was a stranger to him. Though all unwashed, Pete after 
all had a great, big, clean soul. A man of abounding com- 
mon sense and generous impulses, he made friends up and 
down every country road and lane he ever tramped. He 
could have a bed on the newly mown hay in every barn 
in Candia, Deerfield, Raymond and surrounding towns, 
whenever he chose. Pete really had the freedom of the 
country at large. What a volume of intense interest it 
would have made, had Pete's soliloquies along the road 
found their way into published form ! What thoughts 
must have come to him, of what might have been ! How 
he must have often exclaimed along the wayside, with 
Shakespeare, "Fraility, thy name is woman ! " and then 
have added, in the language of the Bard of Avon, 
" Woman's at best a contradiction still." How Pete must 
have at times, when weary of his long, tiresome journey- 
ings, wished for that happiest of days when he could leave 
his bundle of rags outside some one of the twelve gates and 
find abundant entrance into that city where there will be 
no going out for evermore I 

I have had occasion in other writings to speak of Pete 
as a philosopher. He was at one time making his way in 
dead of winter towards Deerfield, facing all the while a 
biting northeast snow storm, when all at once coming to 
his better judgment he exclaimed, " Pete Varnum ! What 
a d — n fool you are to face this snow storm, when it 
makes no difference which way you go " — thereupon, 
he turned right about and went the other way, having 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 131 

then the storm at his back. Ah, Pete, in all this, you 
taught us, more fortunately placed in life than were you, 
a healthy lesson, namely, to take advantage of wind and 
storm in making our way in life. It is with no little affec- 
tion that I write of Pete Varnum. In spite of his rags, he 
had a manly, generous heart, and he made friends of all 
whom he met. Dear Old Pete, a wanderer, weary and 
sore of foot here, but there in your kingdom come, a 
winged seraph. What an infinite difference between the 
two estates ! 

Then there was Polly Hildreth, or " Poll Howard " 
as everybody in Candia called her. Poll must have 
been a girl of remarkable beauty, for she had in her 
maturer years all those attractive facial features which in 
her earlier life must have drawn to her many a pulsating 
young man of tenderest emotions. But it was the same 
old story with Poll, as it had been with many another be- 
fore her. Disappointed in love she became an old maid, 
and went to taking snuff. What havoc a disappointed 
love makes in the world ! It blots out the brightest star 
in the firmament of the affections, and casts a gloom over 
the glad sunshine. 

Fortunate, indeed, is that man or woman who comes out 
of the wreck of love, with just a little bit of his or her 
heart left, and with a brain that is not altogether paralyzed. 
Well, Poll somehow survived her great disappointment in 
life, though somewhat in a shattered condition. In many 
ways she was yet one of the brightest of women, and when 
she took from her dress pocket that snuff-box, and drew 
therefrom, between thumb and forefinger, a generous 
" pinch," one might know there was a bright, smart say- 
ing just ahead. 



132 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

It was on one of these occasions that a young man in my 
neighborhood was telling her some yarn, when Poll said 
to the young man, " If I were going to lie, I would n't tell 
such a d — n foolish lie as that." Poll was not easily de- 
ceived. She had a clear insight into the reason of things, 
and never did she fail to entertain through her ready 
conversation. She was a welcome visitor in nearly every 
home in Candia. Her tramps would cover annually nearly 
every highway in Candia and in the surrounding towns. 
She was known throughout all the region round about. 
" There comes Poll Howard," was the familiar and glad 
saying of all the boys and girls in town. She usually made 
her headquarters, when in my neighborhood, at the home of 
the late Mrs. Abraham Emerson. So frequently did Mrs. 
Emerson care for Poll, that she really became a sort of a 
favorite with the children. I have often heard Luther W. 
Emerson, both at his home in Brooklyn and at his office 
in New York, speak with no little interest, not to say affec- 
tion, of Poll Howard as he remembered her in her fre- 
quent visits to his mother's home. But Poll was at home 
anywhere in Candia, and all Candia made her at home. 
Poll Howard was a shooting star. She had no fixed 
orbit. She knew no law of gravitation. The centrifugal 
and centripetal forces were unrecognized and unknown 
quantities in her revolutions around the circle. Shorn of 
her great love in early life, of the man of her choice, she 
became a nomad. And who wonders at all this ? Blot out 
one's future of a home made happy and resonant with child- 
life, and then one must necessarily grope along a way, ab- 
solutely without the promise of a better day. Poll How- 
ard remains to this day one of the quaint characters of 
Candia. I often wonder, now that she is in heaven, how 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 133 

she manao'es to o:et alono: without her snuff-box fiUed to 

O O o 

the brim. 

Then there was " Lame Nat Rowe," so well known in 
Candia, whose pronounced eccentricities came from no 
disappointment in love, neither did they come from the 
want of a home. But Lame Nat was nevertheless unlike 
most men. With a vein of wit that was irrepressible, he 
made things wherever he was especially interesting. How 
frequently the voice of the moderator in the Candia town 
meetings of years ago, would echo and reecho throughout 
the vestry under " the Church on the Hill," with the man- 
datory exclamation, " Is Capt. John Smith in the house? " 
*•' If so, he will please put Lame Nat Rowe out." It was 
just meat and drink for Lame Nat to make things lively 
at the annual town meeting, and he never failed to accom- 
plish his object. At one time he posted himself at the 
vestry door, when the late Rufus E. Patten, as moderator, 
was busy receiving ballots, and shouted with a stentorian 
voice, " Is Capt. John Smith in the house ? If so, have 
him put Lame Nat out." And then Lame Nat put with 
lightning speed for the horse shed. 

Mr. Austin Cass, in my late interview with him at his 
home, told me how the boys in his school district in the 
days of " Master Fitts," got Lame Nat to slide, or rather 
to attempt to slide, across a pond of ice which they well 
knew would not support his weight. For the attempted 
feat they offered Nat a pint of rum. Nat did not hesitate 
to accept the offer. He downed with the rum at one 
drink, and started on his perilous slide. Half-way across 
the pond in he went, and came out thoroughly baptized. 
With clothing dripping, and yet in a happy state of mind, 
he took his accustomed seat in school, when he soon be- 



134 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

came so over-enthusiastic in demonstrations not in keep- 
ing with Master Fitts' school, that the teacher called to 
the desk Lame Nat, and at once proceeded to whip him, 
but the more Master Fitts whipped the more Lame Nat 
laughed, until finally catching the fumes of Nat's breath. 
Master Fitts sent him to his seat, to sober off. 

It happened some years ago that I was on the train 
with Lame Nat, just as the evening was coming on, from 
Portsmouth to Candia. When the train reached Candia 
it was dark, so that Lame Nat in stepping from his car 
landed between the car and the platform — when in an 
instant Nat shouted to the conductor, " Why don't you 
drive your d — d old cars up nearer the platform ? " Lame 
Nat Kowe was a genius in his way. With a Websterian 
head, he knew all the while what he was about. Had he 
become a lawyer he would have ranked among the very 
first of his profession. He intuitively saw the point to be 
gained. The unwritten sayings of Lame Nat Rowe deserve 
a conspicuous place in any history that may ever be writ- 
ten of Candia. Another letter on the quaint characters of 
Candia, then will I betake myself to the college boys again 
— and you Candia girls, don't think I am to leave you 
out, for I have always felt an especial delight to be after 
you, and no less a delight rs it for me to be after you still. 



XXIII 

The late John B. Gough, in his lecture on " Peculiar 
People," set forth in his own brilliant way, that it was 
the peculiarities of the man that made up his individual- 
ity. I seem now to hear that inimitable orator and tem- 
perance reformer exclaim as of old, " Why, I have friends 
from whom I would not lose a freckle of the nose, neither 
would I miss that awkward limp in their walk, nor the 
frequent blunders in their English." A well defined in- 
dividuality is the personal stamp which gives a special 
and peculiar value in one's estimation of both men and 
women. The moment one strives to copy the manner and 
life of another, from that moment he ceases to count one 
in the census. Be yourself, and then necessarily will you 
be accounted quaint and peculiar, from the fact that you 
are unlike others. We all have our idiosyncrasies. When 
you find two men " as much alike as two peas in a pod," 
then may you be sure that one or the other of the two is 
a cipher. 

God displayed an infinite wisdom, in the infinite variety 
of the human creation. I have n't a friend in all the wide 
world to whom I do not attach certain characteristics — ; 
neither have you. And so in estimating and giving place 
to Candia people, I list them under the head of certain 
peculiarities. I readily recognize the neighbor who is 
coming up the road, from his ungainly walk it may be, a 
walk that 1 have come to prize, simply because it is the 



136 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

peculiar carriage of my friend. The blundering language 
of another friend, may become altogether pleasant to me, 
because it is his uniform way of expressing himself. I 
just love the story-teller, who delights in all sorts of 
*' yarns," not that he wishes to deceive, but that he revels 
in the marvelous. We are all in duty bound to give a 
large margin to the so-called peculiarities of the indi- 
vidual. 

Well, to go on with my story concerning some of the 
quaint people of Candia, I wonder if there is any one in 
the town, of the older people, who does not have a vivid 
recollection of Jake Morrison as he was familiarly called. 
Jake was the biggest kind of a story-teller, and the more 
ridiculous the story, the better pleased was he. In an 
early day Jake Morrison went to Ohio, when that State 
was a part of the far West. Upon his return home Jake 
had the most marvelous things to tell of the productive- 
ness of the soil in that State. To illustrate, he said a 
friend of his planted on his Ohio farm a half-peck of po- 
tatoes, and they spread like white weed all over his farm. 
Morrison declared it was utterly impossible to kill them 
out, so that finally the broad acres of his friend were 
made absolutely worthless. But the biggest story that 
Jake ever told was the one showing the smooth rift of 
Ohio timber. He said it split just as smooth as one could 
shave a shingle, and then to make his meaning plain, he 
told the following, " whopper." 

With a face as honest in its expression as that of a 
deacon, he told how an Ohio farmer was one day felling 
trees, and just as he was called to dinner, he struck the axe 
into the butt, measuring forty feet, of one of the trees he 
had felled. The farmer noticed as he left for his dinner. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 137 

that the axe had made the slightest rift in the forty-feet 
butt, when lo, and behold ! as he returned from his dinner 
the axe had split in the smoothest way, the forty-feet butt, 
and had made its way twenty feet into the sixty-feet butt, 
which lay along side. Now lying, in more than a half in- 
nocent way, was the leading peculiarity Jake Morrison 
had ; he would n't have been Jake Morrison had he always 
told the literal truth. Jake was a good old soul after all, 
with a great big heart that took in the whole brotherhood 
of mankind. I have never doubted that Jake had a pro- 
found respect for the truth, and yet he would at times 
and very frequently, get far from it, by reason of his in- 
born love for the wonderful and ridiculous. I never have 
believed that Jake Morrison's story-telling was ever 
charged up to him in the books as kept above. 

It is told of the late James Critchet how in that great 
Washingtonian movement he persisted in buying his jug 
of rum at the grocery store, along with his jug of mo- 
lasses. It was on one of these occasions, as he was coming 
out from the grocery store with his jug of rum in one 
hand, and his jug of molasses in the other, that a Wash- 
ingtonian, meeting him, said : " Mr. Critchet, I wish rum 
was as high again, and molasses as cheap again as now." 
Whereupon Mr. Critchet replied, "So do I — for I 
really think that there is that difference in the worth 
of the two articles." Mr. Critchet, a temperate man his 
life long, and one of the brightest men in Candia, 
always kept a level head in his religion and in his politics. 
I have the pleasantest remembrances of Mr. James 
Critchet. It was of him that I bought my first watch, 
when teaching school in the Colcord district, and it kept 
excellent time, just as he said it would. 



138 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

I must make prominent mention of "Bode" Crombie, 
a name familiar not only in Candia, but throughout the 
surrounding towns as well. Although Bode's home was in 
Auburn, yet he belonged equally to Candia, and the towns 
adjacent thereto. Bode Crombie was a man of consum- 
mate wit, and a genius in more ways than one. A man of 
much natural elegance, he always made a happy introduc- 
tion of himself to friend or stranger. With his ruffled 
shirt front, and in his velvet coat, he made a striking and 
impressive appearance. Everybody in Candia was glad 
whenever Bode put in his appearance, for they knew there 
was a bright saying just ahead. Meeting the late Deacon 
Francis Patten at his home one morning, the deacon said, 
" Bode, you seem to be happy always. What makes you 
so ? " When Bode, with a twinkle in his eye, at once re- 
plied, " Religion, religion, Deacon Patten, and if you had 
it you 'd be happy," no one enjoyed the pert reply of 
Bode, more than did Deacon Patten. Bode had a great 
fondness for cider, and oftentimes he would become a bit 
enthusiastic over his fill of it. 

It was on one of these occasions when full of the 
spirit that lurks in the cup, that Bode betook himself 
to a Methodist class meeting held at the house of the 
late Mr. Jack Clark in Auburn. Bode had just cider 
enough aboard to make him somewhat demonstrative and 
noisy. Indeed he so disturbed the meeting, that Mr. Clark 
approached Bode and said to him, " You must keep quiet. 
You are disturbing this meeting. Bode, you are drunk." 
" I know I am drunk," replied Bode, "for if I wasn't," 
he added, " I would n't be such a d — n fool as to be 
here." 

At another time. Bode bought a full suit of clothing of 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 139 

a Chester merchant, getting trusted for the same. The 
purchase was made at the time when the creditor could 
imprison the debtor, he, the creditor, however, being com- 
pelled to pay the board of the prisoner. The Chester mer- 
chant not being able to recover from Bode for the purchased 
suit, lodged him in jail at Exeter. After keeping Bode in 
jail all one winter, paying the expenses thereof, he sick- 
ened of the cost, so he finally released Bode, knowing full 
well that he would never recover a penny of the indebted- 
ness. On the day of his release. Bode dressed himself in 
his new suit, and then made his way to the store of the 
merchant of whom he made the purchase. On entering 
the store, the Chester merchant gave Bode the following 
greeting : " Good morning, Bode ; you are out in fine style 
this morning — with a new suit of clothing from top to 
toe." " Yes," replied Bode, " and it 's paid for, too." 
Bode was always in his kingdom come, when he had suc- 
cessfully played some trick on his fellow. Had he turned 
his wits to the law, he would have become the most dis- 
tinguished of the legal profession. 

Then there was Waity Cass ! Who does n't remember 
her ! Always good-natured and laughing. And the old 
" razor strapper," who used to make his appearance once 
a year. These quaint characters, found in all country 
towns, serve to break up the dull monotony of country 
life. But then, we are all more or less quaint characters. 
You and I, dear reader, have our funny side, and although 
we may not recognize it, you may be sure others do. 

" Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as others see us ! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 
And foolish notion." 



140 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

To give a scriptural ending to this letter, I quote the 
words of Paul to Titus : " Who gave himself for us, that 
he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto 
himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." 



XXIV 

I TRUST that no one who may read these " Reminiscences " 
will for a moment suppose that I am of the oj^inion 
that the college makes the man. The boy who has gump- 
tion and brain will prove himself a man in spite of the 
schools. I have known more than one dunce to graduate 
from the college with his " A. B." And yet I am safe in 
the statement that the Candia boys who have graduated 
from higher institutions of learning, have at least made 
an average showing rn their varied departments of life. 
It is with peculiar pleasure and a commendable pride that 
I write of Candia' s interest in the class graduating at 
Dartmouth in 1860. There were five of us of the home 
town, who in the autumn of 1856 entered that class, 
namely : The Rev. S. F. French, now of Londonderry, 
Caleb Cushing Sargent of Vermont, the late Warren 
Worthen of Candia Village, Alanson Palmer of Brook- 
lyn, New York, and his brother, the writer of these 
" Reminiscences." How well I remember that eventful 
morning when I first entered the college chapel for morn- 
ing prayers ! The rain was pouring, so we freshmen took 
along our umbrellas, and like honest boys just from home, 
we left them as we entered the chapel, by the door, and 
took our seats in the rear of the audience room, directly 
behind the wise but " wicked " sophs. As we made our 
way from the chapel after prayers, lo and behold ! there 
was not an umbrella left. The sophs had made a clean 



142 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

sweep of them, not leaving a single one to tell the story 
of the wholesale theft committed. This was my first prac- 
tical lesson in morals received at Dartmouth. I shall 
never forget that scriptural reading and that prayer of 
the venerable president, the venerable Dr. Nathan Lord, 
on that first morning of my college life. " The earth is 
the Lord's and the fulness thereof, the world and they 
that dwell therein," was the scriptural lesson that he 
gave ; and then followed his prayer so replete with thanks- 
giving and praise, and so filled with earnest pleadings for 
the college. Dr. Lord, in his morning and evening devo- 
tions in the college chapel, came very near to the heart 
of each student. " O Lord, bless these students, bless every 
one of them — may each heart in thy presence be a fit 
temple for the in-dwelling of thy holy spirit" was his 
earnest petition for us boys both morning and evening the 
long year through. Dr. Lord's prayers were the eloquent 
and touching renderings of a heart inspired with both the 
human and the diviue. And neither shall I ever forget 
the welcome that the late Professor Putnam gave the class 
of '60 to the college. It was in the freshman recitation 
room where he met us, and told us in such a pleasant way 
what would be expected of us as students, at the same 
time giving us assurances that the college would withhold 
no good thing from us. We did n't tell the genial profes- 
sor that a half hour previous to his welcome and to the 
pledged word of good old Dartmouth, that our morals 
would be safe in her keeping, that every umbrella owned 
by the honest, unsophisticated freshmen had been stolen 
by the sophs in spite of Dr. Lord's amen still repeating 
itself. 

Warren Worthen, a hard-working student, and an ex- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 143 

cellent scholar, left the college at the end of his freshman 
year, and went South to engage in teaching, and finally 
when the war came on, he joined the South in its strug- 
gle to free herself from the North. Singular as this may 
seem, and unfortunate as this may have been for Wor- 
then, still it can be said of him that he was honest in his 
convictions, and followed what seemed to him a duty ; so 
there were but four of us Candia boys who graduated at 
Dartmouth in the class of '60. Caleb Gushing Sargent, 
a namesake of the late Caleb Cushing of Newburyport, 
Mass., maintained an excellent rank throughout his col- 
lege course. He has represented his adopted home in Ver- 
mont for several terms in the State legislature. At one 
time he was prominently mentioned for the lieutenant 
governorship of the State. Cushing Sargent has proved 
himself a leading and influential man in the community 
where he has resided for these many years. 

The Rev. Samuel F. French was an industrious pupil, 
and stood, upon graduating, well up among the first of his 
class. His theological studies he pursued at Andover, 
Mass. As a clergyman he has filled important positions 
in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. It was 
my privilege to hear Mr. French twenty or more years ago 
in the '' Church on the Hill," in Candia, and I remember 
to this day his text and the sermon that followed. His 
subject was the death of Moses, the text reading : " His 
eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Mr. 
French occupies a prominent place among the clergymen 
of New England. His father, the late Coffin M. French, 
was for many years a deacon in the Congregational church 
in Candia, and now his son, John P. French, holds the 
same office in the same church. Mr. French's younger 



144 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

brother, George Henry Frencli, is also a clergyman, while 
his only sister married a clergyman, the late James H. 
Fitts. So it will be seen that Samuel Franklin French 
naturally enough became a minister, for he came of a fam- 
ily where deacons and ministers were to the right of him, 
and to the left of him, and in front of him. Mr. French 
has not allowed himself, in this speculative age, to be swept 
from his moorings. He has persistently held to the faith 
once delivered to the saints. With nothing of the sen- 
sational about him,- the Rev. S. F. French preaches the 
simple gospel in an earnest way, and in all his pastorates 
he has met with gratifying success. His daily life empha- 
sizes the gospel he preaches. 

Then, there is Alanson Palmer, who has made his mark 
in his professional work as a teacher. For more than thirty 
years he has been connected with the schools of New York 
City, where he is in active service at this present writing. 
So successful has he proved himself in the educational 
world, that Dartmouth College voted him three years ago 
an honorary membership in her Phi Beta Kappa society — 
so that now it reads, *' Alanson Palmer, A. B. and A. M.," 
and what is more than all else, " A Phi Beta Kappa." 
Well, Alanson was in the class of '60, " Palmer 1st," and 
he has been " Palmer 1st " ever since his graduation, in 
spite of the best I could do. However, I have managed to 
somehow get along with my simple A. B., though at times 
I have not absolutely felt sure of even this ; for some years 
ago I unfortunately lost my diploma, so that now to prove 
to the skeptic that I ever graduated from Dartmouth, I 
am compelled to refer him to the Centennial catalogue. 

I do not hesitate to declare that the Candia quartette 
graduating from Dartmouth in 1860, were never caught 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 145 

while in college, smashing in doors, and breaking windows, 
neither were they ever guilty of shaving a freshman's head, 
and immersing the same under the college pump. Taking 
it all in all, they were a very respectable four who made a 
good showing in one of the most brilliant classes Dart- 
mouth ever graduated. The " most brilliant," I say. 
Let 's see how the record stands. In that memorable class 
of which I write, was the late Daniel G. Rollins, one of 
the foremost lawyers in all the country through, at one 
time surrogate of New York, and for several years in the 
district attorney's office of that city. Rollins was the right 
hand man of the late President Arthur, and from him he 
could have had a seat on the bench of the United States 
Supreme Court, had he been willing to have accepted it. 

Prof. A. S. Bickmore of New York City, one of the 
most distinguished naturalists in the world, was a graduate 
with the class of '60. 

Then, there is Col. Oilman H. Tucker, a native of Ray- 
mond, now the secretary of the great American Book Com- 
pany, with headquarters in New York City, who was a dis- 
tinguished member of the class of '60. As a speaker and 
writer, Col. Tucker ranked among the very first at Dart- 
mouth, and to-day, were he to take the platform he would 
draw and hold the largest and most attentive audiences. 
Another member of my class was the Rev. Dr. Arthur 
Little of Boston, one of the leading clergymen in the min- 
istry of the Congregationalists. 

And there is Henry A. Morrill, now of the Cincinnati 
Law School, who has so recently been made an LL.D. 
by his alma mater, who was for four years a seat-mate of 
mine at Dartmouth. So I repeat that the class of '60 at 
Dartmouth was one of the most brilliant ever graduated at 



146 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

that institution of learning. Therefore Candia's quartette 
in that class are to be commended for their respectable 
rank among so many " stars." In spite, however, of my 
college training, the question will come back to me more 
or less frequently, was it the better plan after all, that I 
should have pursued a college course ? My good father 
used to frequently say to me, when a boy, " Stick to the 
farm, Wilson, and let the college go," and I have at times 
thought he was more than half right in his advice. While 
I estimate as highly as does any other, a liberal education, 
still I am of the opinion that many a boy goes to college, 
who would have the better succeeded in life, had he put 
those four college years into the practical work of life. 
And, as I have already hinted, I am not sure that I am not 
one of those boys who have made the mistake of going to 
college. However, I have been, and although I have lost 
my diploma it is my business to prove myself loyal to good 
old Dartmouth, and to her Candia graduates, and it is my 
delight so to do. 



XXV 

In the class at Dartmouth immediately following mine, 
was graduated the late Captain William R. Patten. There 
is no one in Candia who does not pleasantly remember 
" Bill," as he was called by every one. Capt. Patten must 
have been born when all the conditions went to the mak- 
ing up of a generous, whole-soul man. As a boy Bill was 
a favorite in his neighborhood. Without the least bit of 
jealousy, he was willing the other boy should have the 
larger half of the apple. A born democrat in the primary 
signification of that term, he recognized his equal in others. 
He never claimed to own the earth to the exclusion of his 
fellow. It was no assumption on the part of Bill that he 
was born in school district No. 4, neither did he make this 
fact a source of egotistical pride. But yet, I do not doubt 
that Capt. Patten was always glad that he had his birth in 
sight of the little red schoolhouse of which I have made 
such frequent mention in these " Reminiscences." Caj^t. 
Patten was a philosopher of the first rank. He took life 
as it came without making any fuss about it. He looked 
on the bright side of everything. An excellent scholar in 
all the departments of his school life, yet he graduated 
from the college an all round man. 

During his academic and college life he learned of all 
those with whom he met. He well understood how to meet 
men and women so as to gain at once their confidence and 
friendship. William R. Patten was the jolliest of souls, 



148 EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

so that he was invariably " hail fellow well met." No one 
enjoyed a joke better than did he, and apparently it made 
but little difference whether the joke was on him or on 
the other fellow. It was the joke per se that he enjoyed. 
I remember when in the academy it was Patten's habit to 
lie down for a little nap during the warm days of the sum- 
mer time, after a full dinner. It was on one of these occa- 
sions when he had fallen into a sweet dreamy slumber 
that some one put his clock ahead one hour, and then 
awakening him said, " Bill," pointing to the clock, '' it 
wants only ten minutes of two, our recitation hour." BiU 
rubbing his eyes said, " Why, this has been the shortest 
of hours ; " and then added, " by the feeling, I should n't 
think my dinner had been in my stomach fifteen min- 
utes. I must have a touch of dyspepsia." Bill, always 
on hand at the appointed hour, hurriedly made his way 
to the recitation room, only to find that he was an hour 
ahead of time. When he learned the joke was on him, he 
laughed as heartily as did his schoolmate, who put the 
clock one hour ahead of solar time. The man who can 
take a joke in as happy a way as he perpetrates one, is 
the man whose philosophy always stands the test. I re- 
member one occasion, soon after the war of the rebellion 
had ended, that Dea. Patten said to William, " My son, 
if you will give up smoking, I '11 give you fifty dollars." 
Whereupon William facetiously replied after this wise : 
" Father, I have been to the war, and done what I could in 
aiding our Northern army to put down this infernal rebel- 
lion. The war has cost the government such an immense 
amount of money that it has been compelled to lay a tax on 
both the necessities and luxuries of life in order that it may 
pay its indebtedness ; now, as tobacco is one of its luxu- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 149 

ries taxed, would you think it weU of me, after I had 
fought to put down the rebellion, were I unwilling to pay 
a share of the tax on tobacco ?" The father appreciated the 
keen and subtile wit of his boy, and so the tobacco ques- 
tion was then and there dropped. William was always 
ready for a joke and everybody knew it. 

I happened one day into the office of Judge Cross in 
Manchester, where William was a student. At the time 
of my call, Bill was making out a deed of landed property. 
He was using Massabesic sand to dry the ink on his manu- 
script, and as he gently shook the box over his paper, the 
top came off and let a too generous supply of the sand on 
his partly written deed. I exclaimed, " Well, Bill, you have 
done it now ! " When he replied, " No matter — for I am 
conveying real estate." It was in the late autumn of 
the early sixties that William called upon the late Mrs. 
Cochrane, at her home in Chester. Mrs. Cochrane was 
then Miss Helen French. It was during his principalship 
of Chester Academy that Capt. Patten had made the 
acquaintance of Miss French, and the two had come to 
enjoy and appreciate each other's keen wit and bright 
sayings. On the occasion of the call to which I refer. Bill 
took me along with him. I shall never forget that half 
hour made brilliant by Miss French and the captain. As 
we were leaving. Bill said, " Well, Miss French, where are 
you to spend the winter ? " In answer to which query she 
replied, " 1 have not quite determined yet, whether to 
spend it in Washington or Candia." "Well," said Bill, " if 
you are wise you will spend it in Candia, for," he added, 
" Candia is far ahead of Washington in all that makes up 
the really beautiful." It was on a Monday morning, when 
a student in Dartmouth College, that the subject of a 



150 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

personal devil was being discussed by Bill's class in the 
Biblical exercise under the late Prof. Noyes. As the discus- 
sion waxed warmer and warmer, and while the variety of 
opinions concerning the personality of his satanic majesty 
were rapidly multiplying, Prof. Noyes called upon Bill for 
his view of the matter. Now Bill, who was never caught 
napping during that Monday morning Biblical hour in 
college, had all the while been slyly cramming up on the 
subject with Barnes' notes. So in his answer to Prof. 
Noyes' query, " Patten, what have you to say of the per- 
sonality of the devil?" he, rising, holding Barnes' notes 
in his left hand behind his back, gave the view held by 
Barnes. When the professor with a suggestive smile 
said, " Well, Patten, you are backed in your opinion of 
the personality of the devil by good authority," no one 
enjoyed Prof. Noyes' keen and knowing reply better than 
Bill did. 

While Capt. Patten was the very embodiment of jollity 
and fun, yet he had his serious side. The work of life he 
met and performed in a manly way. In all his instruction 
given in the public schools, he met the boys and girls as 
the men and women of the future. Capt. Patten had 
a popular and drawing way in doing things ; so that 
he had the promise of success at the start. 

When the war of the rebellion came on, William 
R. Patten was among the first to offer his services to the 
government. I can see him now as plainly as though it 
were but yesterday, marching up and down his father's 
orchard by the roadside, with musket well in hand, prac- 
ticing for that terrible four years of war. 

It was on a brilliant, moonlit Sunday evening, just pre- 
vious to his departure for the field of action, that I heard 




CAPTAIN WILLIAM R. PATTEN 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 151 

William speak at the evening prayer-meeting in the vestry 
on the hill, and I well remember the tender pathos with 
which he spoke those good-by words to the town and his 
many friends. His loving allusion to his sainted mother 
was all aglow with an affection that glorified her sweet 
and sacred memory. After the meeting, I rode home with 
William. The evening and all nature were in happy 
accord with that last Sabbath of his, previous to those 
long, wearisome marches to the field of battle. Capt. Pat- 
ten served through the war, with all that love of country 
and with all that zeal for the right which gave emphasis 
to his loyalty to our free American government. After 
the war was happily ended, Capt. Patten studied law with 
Judge Cross in Manchester, and after being admitted 
to the bar, he began and continued his practice in Man- 
chester until the time of his death, in 1886. Capt. Patten 
as a lawyer held rank among the very first of his profes- 
sion in the city of his adoption. For several years he was 
clerk of the House of Representatives in Concord, and 
for several terms he represented his ward in Manchester 
in the legislature of the state. Had Capt. Patten's life 
been continued him, there was nothing in a political way 
for which he might not have hoped. Popular among 
all classes, he easily drew the majority vote. And then 
the ability he evinced in the world of politics was an assur- 
ance of a brilliant future. 

William R. Patten had many honors coming to him, 
but in spite of them, I love better than all else to remem- 
ber the man so beloved in college, and in his chosen pro- 
fession, and by his comrades in the war, as the bright, 
jolly " Bill Patten," whom everybody so loved in school 
district No. 4. When Bill came down the road with 



152 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

his genial, smiling face under a big slouch hat, everybody 
knew there was " a good-morning," with a heart in it, 
for ea;ch of the neighbors. Bill's calls took in the entire 
neighborhood, and the whole neighborhood was glad to give 
him greeting. He was a favorite with all ages. I well 
remember how my father on a Fourth of July morning 
would take his old flint gun, and go up to Deacon Patten's 
house, and rouse up Bill, who would quickly respond, 
bringing his tin trumpet with him, when they, two boys 
together, would celebrate with a vim throughout the neigh- 
borhood. 

When William R. Patten died all Candia was a 
mourner at his grave, for she well knew that one of the 
brightest and the most genial of her children had fallen 
by the way — and yet not fallen — for to stay his steps 
midway in his earthly pilgrimage as he did, was only to 
mount upward and onward to fairer fields, and to greater 
usefulness. 

William R. Patten had a great big heart, and a great 
big soul, and a great big brain, so that with these three 
important factors so happily combined in his physical and 
intellectual make-up, he drew the multitude about him. 
To write of him is to again come in touch with the unself- 
ish, loving life of the genial " Bill." 



XXVI 

There is no record of Candia being represented in the 
student life at Dartmouth College previous to 1823. In 
that year David Pillsbury entered the college as a fresh- 
man, and was graduated in 1827. Then followed William 
Henry Duncan in the class graduating in 1830. Mr. 
Duncan was a son of the late William Duncan, who for 
so many years kept a grocery store on the road south of 
the " Church on the Hill." 

William H. Duncan was a man of elegant grace of 
manner and a man of refined culture. In conversation he 
was one of the most attractive of men. Had his ambition 
been equal to his scholarship both in the college and in 
his profession, he must have proven himself a leader in 
the world of letters and of law. Mr. Duncan, however, 
was a good deal content to take the world as it came to 
him. He resided in Hanover for many years, and seldom 
did he fail to call on us Candia boys at least once a year 
during our college course. 

I remember well of once calling uj)on Mr. Duncan at 
his office or study in Hanover, and never shall I forget 
the pleasant reception he gave me. His talk on that occa- 
sion was mostly of Candia and her people. With a touch 
of sentiment he dwelt quite at length on the varied and 
far-reaching landscape views of the town. Sitting in his 
library room, I had an unobstructed view of his sleeping- 
room, adjoining, and on the morning of my call, his bed 



154 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

was as he left it after his concluding nap of the night. 
Seeing that I had caught sight of his sleeping-apartment, 
Mr. Duncan said, " Mr. Palmer, I make up my bed just 
twice a year — once on Thanksgiving Day, and then again 
on the Fourth of July " — and yet Mr. Duncan was a 
man of the most immaculate neatness in his personal 
attire. Mr. Duncan's wife was a sister of the wife of 
Rufus Choate. She died early in her married life. I met 
Mr. Duncan for the last time in Boston a few years before 
his death. I remember well how at that time he inquired 
all about Candia, and particularly for the boys who had 
graduated at Dartmouth. William H. Duncan was one 
of the most brilliant of men, and by his genial, attractive 
presence he drew about him friends wherever he went. 
Moses H. Fitts graduated at Dartmouth in 1831, and then 
followed in 1833 Ephraim Eaton and Jesse Eaton Pills- 
bury. 

In 1841 Richard Emerson Lane was graduated. Mr. 
Lane was a man of much promise. He died soon after his 
graduation. In 1843 Lorenzo Clay graduated. Mr. Clay 
was an exceedingly bright man, and was an able lawyer. 
All these earlier collegiate graduates from Candia were 
men of affairs who well understood their work in life and 
who did it. They were Candia's introduction to Dart- 
mouth College, so from their time on Dartmouth has had 
for the greater portion of the time representatives from 
Charmingfare. 

In the class of 1850 the Rev. Mose Patten, now of 
Hooksett, graduated, and this brings me to the time with 
which I am somewhat familiar. Mr. Patten studied theo- 
logy at Andover, Mass., and has held pastorates both in 
New Hampshire and Massachusetts. No one has ever had 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 155 

reason to doubt Mr. Patten's orthodoxy. He has closely 
and conscientiously adhered to his early religious instruc- 
tion, and preached it. A man honest in his convictions, 
he has ever proved himself true to them. 

Candia had two graduates from Dartmouth in the class 
of 1853, the late Rev. John D. Emerson and the late 
Jonathan Brown. Mr. Brown soon after his graduation 
entered into business with promising success. By too close 
application his health failed him, and he died when com- 
paratively a young man. Mr. Brown was one of the most 
genial of men, and had he lived there can be no question 
that he would have succeeded in his chosen work of life. 

The Rev. John D. Emerson as a clergyman was way 
above the average of his profession. He excelled as a 
writer. Mr. Emerson was for many years pastor of the 
First Congregational church in Haverhill, N. H., and he 
also held pastorates in Vermont and Maine. He had an 
incisive and sometimes a quaint way of putting things, 
so that occasionally he was liable to be misinterpreted, but 
all the same he invariably had his say, and there was 
always something in his sayings to take in and digest. 
John D. Emerson in the pulpit was bold and truthful of 
utterance. He preached the " word " as he understood it 
without making any apology for so doing. It is the testi- 
mony ©f leading New England clergymen that he was one 
of the ablest writers of his profession. The Rev. Dr. 
Plumb of Roxbury, in speaking of the Rev. John D. 
Emerson, said that as a writer he reminded one of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. He was suggestive in all that he wrote 
and in all that he said. To take in the whole scope of his 
thought one was compelled to read between the lines. 
And yet he kept nothing back. His sentences, however. 



156 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

in all their fullness, begot additional thought which the 
hearer worked out at his leisure. 

I read some years ago a published address that Mr. 
Emerson gave on some occasion connected with Pembroke 
Academy that much impressed me at the time for its 
forcible argument and striking diction, so that I was ever 
afterward ready to believe that all which had been claimed 
for him as a writer by the leading men in his profession, 
was true. At times Mr. Emerson so bluntly and uniquely 
stated himself from the pulpit that his hearers were likely 
to wince a bit and possibly kick the kneeling stool in the 
pew. On one occasion preaching to an audience he said, 
pointing to the graveyard in the rear of the church, " I 
would as soon preach to the corpses back of me, as to 
preach to the corpses in front of me." This telling and 
emboldened sentence he uttered to point a general truth. 
He undoubtedly meant to say, and did say substantially, 
that he saw but little difference between a dead man in the 
graveyard and a dead man in the pews. Mr. Emerson 
believed in a live church. His prayer was for a member- 
ship that would do something, and in all this he was right. 

John D. Emerson was a progressive minister both in 
and out of the pulpit. He did n't stand still in his re- 
ligion. He eagerly came into a larger and broader field 
of religious thought. He ^ gave the go-by to much of the 
instruction which had been dealt out to him in his early 
life from the pulpit on the hill. 

An Unitarian lady from Wayland, Mass., who when 
living spent her summers in Peru, Vt., told me some years 
ago how pleased she was with the generous, loving man- 
ner in which the Rev. John D. Emerson administered 
the sacrament in the church at her summer home, on a 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 157 

Sunday when she was present. Her words were these : 
" Mr. Emerson said ; ' This table is not my table, neither 
is it your table, but it is the Lord's table, therefore all 
present who would consider it a privilege to partake of 
these emblems, are cordially and lovingly invited to do 
so.' " Mr. Emerson in his maturer and later life, had 
no sympathy with that invitation which was in this wise : 
" All those who are in good and regular standing in sister 
churches are invited to partake with us." Mr. Emerson's 
religious creed took in the whole human kind. He recog- 
nized the whole brotherhood of the human race in all his 
religious thought. To him God was the loving Father of 
all His children. So in a religious and intellectual way, it 
may be safely affirmed that he constantly kept himself 
well to the front on the learner's seat. 

He held himself ready to give up an old thought for a 
newer and better one. He did not believe that the lesson 
learned was the end of all study. He was not only willing, 
but glad to change his book-mark to newer and fresher 
pages. So far as I have learned of Mr. Emerson, God 
was constantly revealing Himself anew to him. John D. 
Emerson never allowed his yesterdays to limit and stint 
his to-days. Original in all his thought and speech, he 
enjoyed that freedom which allowed him to search for 
later and higher truths, and when found he did not hesi- 
tate to personally accept them and preach them. 

It is refreshing to thus write of Mr. Emerson. That 
man for whom there is a new creation every morning and 
every evening, and to whom there is an ever revealing 
God, the loving Father of us all, can be no other than 
a leader in all that which is best in the world of morals 
and in the religious world. 



158 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Such a man was the Rev. John D. Emerson, in spite of 
any individual peculiarity he may have possessed. He 
lived his own life without any attempt to shape it after 
the manner of others. He had a pronounced individuality ; 
he did his own work in his own way, and he did it well. 



XXVII 

The late Daniel Dana Patten graduated at Dartmouth in 
the class of 1855, holding during his entire college course 
an enviable rank among the first of his class. 

It will be difficult for me to tell Candia people anything 
new of Dana Patten, for everybody in his town knew him 
intimately and well. Of an eminently social nature, he 
drew about him, from every side, an army of friends. 
Dana was made on a large plan both physically and intel- 
lectually. I seem to see now his towering and magnificent 
form emerging from the woods in what was formerly 
known as the Nathaniel Robie pasture, coming over to 
my home to visit my brother Albert. He and Albert 
were the closest of friends in all their boyhood days, and 
frequently visited each other at their respective homes. 
In this way I saw much of Patten in his earlier life. I 
never saw Dana, that I did not envy him something of 
his generous linear measurement. He made a striking 
figure wherever he went, and attracted the admiring gaze 
of the crowd. In the early sixties I visited Washington, 
D. C, and it so happened that while walking down Penn- 
sylvania Avenue early one morning, so as to catch sight 
of the soldiers who were making their way to the front, I 
saw in the distance a man approaching me, whose manly 
height towered way above the boys in blue. I at once 
said to my friend who was with me, " That, I am sure, is 
Dana Patten," and it was he on his way home from a busi- 



160 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

ness trip West. I mention this incident because there in 
the capital city filled with an army of our stalwart soldier- 
boys men and women, I well remember, turned around to 
have a o:ood look at Dana Patten of Candia. There was a 
happy and unique harmony of proportion in all his phys- 
ical make-up. He was a fit subject for the most skilled 
artist. He was indeed an objective illustration of a hand- 
some man. 

Patten, like many another Candia boy, made his own 
way in life. In the academy and at college he paid his 
own expenses by working in the hayfield during his sum- 
mer vacations, and teaching school during the winter 
recess. For two or three years following his graduation, 
he was principal of the academy in Chester. Patten ex- 
celled as a teacher. 

He studied law in Boston in the office of the late Theo- 
dore Russell, father of the late Governor Russell, and was 
admitted to the bar in the early sixties. Patten began his 
practice at 27 State Street, Boston, with much promise of 
success. It was my delight while teaching in Arlington, 
Mass., so many years ago, to run into Boston and call on 
Dana, busy at his law books, but never so busy that we 
did not have a review lesson on Candia. Patten early left 
the law for a business life, but his love for the educational 
field won him back to the schools. 

He was principal of the high school in Winchester, 
Mass., for several years, and only left after having a call 
to the high school in Stoneham at a larger salary. I knew 
personally of his success in Winchester, for I was for 
three years principal of her high school previous to Mr. 
Patten's principalship, so that I naturally retained a pe- 
culiar interest in the school. During my frequent visits 




DANIEL DANA PATTEN 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 161 

to Winchester I heard much of Dana's ability and suc- 
cess as an instructor. That he was much appreciated in 
Winchester is seen from the fact that he was recalled to 
her high school from his position in Stoneham. From 
Winchester he was called to the high school in Portland, 
Me., where he remained several years. While in Port- 
land the late Thomas B. Reed was a member of his Board 
of Education. Between Mr. Reed and Patten there was 
a close friendship formed, which continued through their 
lives. 

Out from Mr. Patten's schools there went many of his 
pupils to Harvard University. 

From the Portland High School Patten went to Texas 
■where he was engaged in business for some years. His 
chief object in going to a more southern climate was that 
he might rid, or at least relieve himself of rheumatism, but 
a cure was not effected even under the more genial sun of 
a southern clime, so that finally he returned North and 
after spending a year or two in Derry, he located himself 
in Cambridge, Mass., right under the shadow of Harvard 
University. There he lived for some thirteen years, until 
his death, which occurred in the winter of 1899. During 
Mr. Patten's residence in Cambridge he had at times stu- 
dents in Harvard University under his tutelage. For the 
greater portion of his life in Cambridge Mr. Patten suf- 
fered from chronic rheumatism, so much so that for the 
most of the time he was only able to make his way from 
room to room in a wheeled chair. Tt was in these last 
years of his life, when laid aside from active service by that 
most cruel of all tyrants, the rheumatism, that Mr. Patten 
evinced that sublime patience which is the test of a noble, 
generous manhood. During the last years of his life I 



162 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

was a frequent visitor at Mr. Patten's home, so that I saw 
much of his uncomplaining spirit under circumstances that 
would have been likely to have robbed many another man 
of all the virtues. But Mr. Patten during all his years of 
bodily affliction was uniformly cheerful and happy, and 
not only this, for he made others cheerful and happy, who 
came into his genial, restful presence. Never elsewhere 
have I been more cordially received than at Dana Patten's 
home in Cambridge. Many and many a time had he 
shouted to me from the window as I approached his house, 
" Come right in, Wilson, I am glad to see you," and then 
would follow our cosy talk on matters of current interest, 
and especially would we tell each other our love for Candia. 
Dana Patten loved Candia with an affection all aglow — 
even now I hear him ask as he was wont to do, " When did 
you last hear from Candia?" And then, if he had re- 
cently received a letter from some friend in the town, he 
would substantially tell me its contents. Yes, Dana Patten 
loved Candia. He loved every rock, and field, and road, 
and hill in the good old town, and especially did he love 
Patten's hill, the site of his paternal home. How he must 
have taken in over and over again that extended view had 
from his boyhood home, reaching from the Nottingham 
mountains to the sea, and how he must have carried that 
same view with him all through life ! 

In that wheeled chair, from his pleasant home in Cam- 
bridge, in imagination he had visited and revisited times 
innumerable the old home on Patten's hill, and the town 
which gave him birth. 

This letter would fail in its story of the man who re- 
ceived the pleasant things in life with a grateful, appre- 
ciative heart, and who received the ills of life without a 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 163 

murmur, were it not to make prominent mention of Mrs. 
Patten, who proved herself the strong right arm of her 
husband. With a loving care through all the years of 
Mr. Patten's illness, she made her home a world of com- 
fort and contentment both for herself and Mr. Patten. 

Mrs. Patten is a woman of remarkable executive ability, 
and besides this fact, she knows how to plan in a business- 
like way. She gives the lie to the frequent statement made 
that a woman is not the equal of a man in the average 
work of life. 

This much I write of Mrs. Patten to show that Dana 
Patten, with excellent judgment in all things, well under- 
stood what he was about when he sought his wife. He 
must have had in mind when he asked her for her hand 
and for her heart, that scriptural text reading : "Be ye 
not unequally yoked together." 

The last years of Dana Patten's life were an impressive 
lesson in all that patience and in all that spirit of resigna- 
tion which gave a happy rendering to his intelligent trust 
and belief that all must be well throughout God's eternity 
of years. As I looked for the last time upon that manly 
form as it lay in its casket, I said to myself, " Though 
Dana Patten is dead he yet speaketh." And yet, not dead, 
but born anew. There is, there can be, no death — for life 
triumphs over all. 



XXVIII 

"And he called their name Adam" is the scriptural 
declaration which made woman at the very start the equal 
of man. 

It is all too true, however, that since those primitive 
days, lordly man has assumed that he is superior to 
woman in all intellectual endowment and business tact, 
and so able to manage affairs much to his own liking. 

Fortunately in these later days it is being proven in a 
mathematical, logical way that woman is an essential and 
equal factor in all that comprises not only the home life, 
but that larger life which has to do with the outside world. 
So in writing of the girls of Candia, no one will be sur- 
prised that I tell my story of them as being the equal of 
the Candia boys. Indeed the Candia boys may well look 
to their laurels with a jealous eye when considering the 
merits and the " well done " of the Candia girls. 

Here, midway in what I have to say of Candia men, I 
delay for a little that I may introduce to the reader some 
of those Candia women who have been distinguished, and 
are still distinguished, in all social and intellectual life. 

There is the late Miss Mary Young Beane, daughter of 
the late Elder Moses Beane, who for many years was the 
pastor of the church at Candia village. Miss Beane was, 
in the earlier life of New York City, principal of the 
Broadway Seminary for Young Ladies. This school drew 
to itself the very elite of New York. As a teacher Miss 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 165 

Beane was well up to our more modern methods of instruc- 
tion as seen in the most popular institutions of learning 
whether in country or town. The home of Miss Beane in 
the great metropolis was made conspicuous a half-century 
or more ago through its frequent literary meetings. At 
these gatherings were assembled the literati of the city. 
Miss Beane during her lifetime moved in an atmosphere 
made delightful by men and women of letters, while she 
was the moving spirit among them. Of charming manner, 
and always engaging and interesting in her conversation, 
she was necessarily prominent in all social and literary 
life. It was my privilege to meet her more or less fre- 
quently during the last years of her life, and whenever 
in her presence I felt that it was an especial honor to 
have been born in Candia. Mary Young Beane was one 
of the most brilliant of women in her day, in the social 
and literary life of New York city. 

And then there is Mrs. Dinsmore, formerly Miss Har- 
riet Beane, a sister of Mary Young Beane, a woman of 
rare culture, and, as was her sister, prominent in the social 
and intellectual life of the city. Mrs. Dinsmore is still 
living. Mr. Dinsmore, now deceased, was a man of much 
prominence. 

Many of the Candia people must remember Mrs. Isabel 
Barrows, wife of the Kev. S. J. Barrows. She is the 
daughter of the late Dr. Haj^es, who at one time lived on 
the place owned some years ago by the late Dr. Page. 
Mrs. Barrows is now a brilliant writer, and interested in 
many charities, both state and national. 

In later times there was the late Mrs. Edmund Hill, 
she who was Sarah W. Emerson. Mrs. Hill, as a pupil 
in the schools from the primary up through the academy. 



166 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

was always a leader in her class. She had a quick and re- 
ceptive mind, and so took in at once the lesson assigned 
her in school or elsewhere. Mrs. Hill excelled as a teacher. 

The Hon. K. L. Tilton, a Candia boy but now a 
resident of Iowa, came East a few years ago for a visit of 
some weeks. In writing me of his visit he said, " It was 
with the greatest pleasure that I met my old teacher, Mrs. 
Hill," and then he added, " Sarah W. Emerson was the 
brightest and most efficient teacher I ever had." Mrs. 
Hill was the equal of any Candia boy who ever graduated 
from the college, in all that makes up a refined scholarship. 
The late Miss Hannah Fitts, sister of J. Lane Fitts, was 
one of Candia's most unselfish and most noble women. 
Miss Fitts devoted many years of her life in the interest 
of the colored race in the South. I met a lady this past 
summer who was a co-worker with Miss Fitts in her labor 
of love among the freedmen, and she told me much of her 
patient and persistent efforts in the uplif tment of the poor 
colored people of the South. Miss Fitts gave her life for 
the good of others. She went wherever duty called, and to 
perform that duty was her greatest pleasure. 

I must not forget to make prominent mention of the 
late Mrs. Dr. Eaton, better known in Candia as Harriet 
Lane. Miss Lane, or rather Mrs. Eaton, had a keen in- 
tellectual perception of all that was best in the world of 
prose and in the world of poetry. While she lived in an 
atmosphere of sentiment, yet she touched the real world 
at points that were vital. She excelled in the schools both 
as a pupil and as a teacher. For a portion of the time 
that I was a pupil in Atkinson Academy Mrs. Eaton, then 
Miss Lane, was the assistant principal. Her facial features 
were of Grecian mould and her expression was singularly 



REMINISCENCES OF CANUIA 167 

beautiful. As she sat upon the platform of the academy 
at the opening and closing of the day's session of school, 
she made a fit subject for the artist. I see her now as I 
saw her then, with a face so strikingly attractive and with 
such grace in all her manner and in every movement, that 
she easily won the admiration of both teachers and pupils 
in the academy. Mrs. Eaton was gifted as a poet. She 
saw beauty in all God's outward world to which she gave 
expression in sweetest verse. Mrs. Eaton was a woman of 
rare ability and culture. 

Then there was Sarah Dudley, the first wife of the late 
Kev. John D. Emerson. Of a superior mind, Mrs. Emer- 
son proved herself a most womanly woman in the home 
and in the church, and in life as she found it. Edu- 
cated in the schools, she was a lover of all sound learning. 
Caring little for what is termed society life, her inter- 
ests centred in her home. Mrs. Emerson was an honor 
to her sex and a help and encouragement to all whom 
she met. 

I come now to one of the Candia girls whom I know 
so well that I write of her from a personal acquaintance 
of many years. I refer to Mrs. Charles Pressey of Win- 
chester, Mass., known years ago in Candia as Miss Lizzie 
Patten. Mrs. Pressey, as was her brother, Dana Patten, 
of whom I wrote in my last letter, was made on a large, 
generous plan. These bodies of ours count for much, so 
it is that I delight to make special mention of them, when- 
ever they loom skyward. Mrs. Pressey is of magnificent 
physical proportion, and she has a mind in keeping with 
the above fortunate fact. She, too, was a ready learner 
in the schools, and a teacher of pronounced ability and 
success. Much of her experience as a teacher was had in 



168 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

common with her brother, Dana, of whom she was justly 
proud. 

It was in the autumn of 1864, when I became principal 
of the high school in Winchester, Mass., that I made my 
home in Mrs. Pressey's family. To know your man and 
woman thoroughly and well, you need to dwell for a time, 
at least, under the same roof, and eat at the same table 
with them. Well, Mrs. Pressey and her excellent Irus- 
band, Mr. Pressey, now dead, made me a delightful home 
— I had the run of the house, and the garden, too — and 
those pears and grapes ! How luscious and succulent they 
were ! Mrs. Pressey has been and is still much interested 
in the i3ublic schools of Winchester, and for many years 
was a member of her board of education. She did much 
to bring the schools of her adopted town to the very 
front in all that is best in the educational world. Mrs. 
Presse}^, both in the church and in the social literary life 
of her town, is a prominent factor. In this connection I 
must pay tribute to Mr. Pressey. The Chester readers 
of the " Derry News " will be glad to learn of him, for he 
was Chester-born, and resided during all his earlier man- 
hood in the town which gave him birth. Mr. Pressey's 
social life gave him a happy introduction wherever he 
went. An ardent lover of nature, he took in all that was 
beautiful in the outward world, and often did he put on 
canvas with the skill of the artist that he was, paintings 
of much merit. I have now a picture of his of exquisite 
outline and filling, of a lake in North Conway, a painting 
from his own delicate brush. 

Mr. Pressey was for several years a member of the 
Winchester Board of Education, and I can testify to his 
broad and intelligent view of educational matters, as I 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 169 

was a teacher in the schools of Winchester durins; his 
official connection with them. A man of rare intelligence 
on a great variety of subjects, to meet him was at once to 
become a learner under his instruction. In his home, Mr. 
Pressey was an ideal husband and father. Now, don't say 
that I have gone out of my way in writing this much of the 
late Charles Pressey, for Mrs. Pressey, his " better half," 
is a Candia woman, so I '11 venture that were he living, Mr. 
Pressey would stoutly insist that Candia is the dearest 
spot on earth to him ; for any man who is so fortunate 
as to marry a Candia girl would be likely ever after to 
date his reckoning from Char mingf are. 



XXIX 

Nathan B. Prescott, a Candia boy, now a resident 
of Derry, has made such a pronounced success in all his 
business life, that he has given emphasis to what should 
everywhere be recognized as the fact, that a collegiate 
education is not in itself necessary in order that the boy 
should make the most of himself. 

The greatest school of all is found in the big bustling 
world, with its sharp competitions and endless strivings for 
the object to be attained. A live, hustling man as a text- 
book to be studied, surpasses in every way the printed 
page. The scriptural declaration will ever hold true that 
" experience is the best schoolmaster." 

Mr. Prescott without the college A. B. has shot way 
ahead of many a man with his diploma neatly framed, 
hanging in his study. After having completed a course 
of study in the preparatory schools Prescott at once put 
himself to downright hard work at manual labor. And 
besides, he had previously made his way through the pre- 
paratory schools through his own personal efforts. 

In the schools of his native town, and in all his 
academic life he maintained a high rank as a scholar. He 
especially excelled in mathematics. With a logical mind, 
Mr. Prescott demanded the reason of things, so that early 
in life he went to work with an intelligent purpose. At 
eighteen years of age he began his apprenticeship with the 
contractor and builder, the late Asa Colby, of Candia. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 171 

He remained with Mr. Colby until twenty-one years old, 
when with f 100 his father gave him, and with his trade 
well learned, he started out for himself. 

Mr. Prescott worked several years as a contractor and 
builder in Candia and surrounding towns, and in the city 
of Manchester. He was employed at his trade, however, 
for the most part in Holyoke, Mass. This was at the 
time when Holyoke was having its first boom as the com- 
ing town, and there it was that Mr. Prescott made his first 
business venture by way of financial investment. With a 
keen business sagacity he looked ahead and seized upon 
every legitimate opportunity to add to his capital stock in 
trade. 

At Holyoke Mr. Prescott made many friends among 
prominent business men whose influence counted for much 
in introducing him to a larger field of labor. He left the 
carpenter's bench to become a traveling agent for the 
Fairbanks firm of Vermont, in the interest of their mam- 
moth scales. He made his headquarters at Baltimore, 
from which point he made frequent business trips through- 
out the South. So successful was Mr. Prescott in his 
work for the enterprising and widely known firm of Fair- 
banks Brothers, that he soon became substantially their 
confidential agent with power of attorney. Prescott's ex- 
cellent judgment commended itself to the business world. 
Somewhere in the later fifties of the century gone by, Mr. 
Prescott came East and became personally interested in 
the ice business at Jamaica Plain, Mass. For forty years 
or more he continued in this business, which finally 
resulted in the organization of a large company having 
Boston and many of her surrounding towns for its patrons. 
It was in the ice business that Prescott evinced that keen 



172 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

business management that gave him a conspicuous stand- 
ing among the business men of Boston. There was no 
competition so sharp that he, with both eyes open, did 
not successfully meet it. Prompt in all his financial obli- 
gations, he established a credit for himself and company 
which was always to be reckoned at a gold value. It is but 
recently that Mr. Prescott sold out his entire interest 
in the ice business, after having made such a financial suc- 
cess of it, that he and family are now abundantly able 
to live upon the well-earned fruits of his labor in tHeir 
pleasant and inviting home in Derry. 

Aside from Mr. Prescott's many years in active busi- 
ness, he has seen much of and been a prominent factor in 
public life. During his long residence in Jamaica Plain, 
he was one of her foremost citizens, and did much for 
the substantial improvement of the town, which is now a 
part of Boston. For several years he was chairman of 
the board of selectmen, and it was while chairman that 
the soldiers' monument at Jamaica Plain was dedicated. 
The dedication was attended by a public demonstration 
given by the citizens of West Roxbury. The monument 
was accepted in behalf of the town by Mr. Prescott. His 
words on that brilliant and patriotic occasion were so apt 
and so well chosen that I reproduce them, knowing well 
that all who have an interest in Candia will be glad to 
read them. Here is what Mr. Prescott had to say : 

" Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Memorial Com- 
mittee: In behalf of my associates of the board of 
selectmen — in behalf of the citizens of West Roxbury, 
whose authority and presence greet this occasion and 
invest it with power and honor, I accept and salute this 
monumental soldier. And in so doing I am moved first of 




NATHAN B. PRESCOTT 



I 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 173 

all, for myself, for the board, and for the town, to return 
you hearty thanks for your faithful and successful work. 
I congratulate you and pronounce you fortunate that you 
were chosen for this tender and loving service in memory 
of our noble dead. And in the presence of this beautiful 
and appropriate soldiers' monument, I congratulate you, 
fellow citizens, and pronounce you fortunate both for the 
servants you selected and for the service rendered. And 
thus while formally accepting this tribute of tender affec- 
tion, and sacred memory, I am eager to say that I accept 
it in all the loving and patriotic spirit in which it is 
surrendered to our hands. 

" You have well said, Mr. Chairman, that this is no 
triumphal arch raised to perpetuate our victories over 
treason and rebellion, but simply and purely a monument 
raised in affectionate remembrance of our heroic dead. In 
our love for country and kindred we can almost forget the 
victory and treason, for the struggle itself meant love, not 
hate. When the battle waged the fiercest and the hottest, 
we were only saying with the emphasis of fire and blood, 
' We cannot let you go. You must not desert the old 
homestead. You shall not forsake the family altar. You 
shall not cut loose and drift away into outer darkness. 
But the clear sky of the Union must still bend over us, 
and gird us round and protect and bless us all together.' 

" And so we dedicate this monument to our beloved 
dead, with only tender, sacred, and loving memorials, with 
no spirit of exultation over a fallen foe, or of party or sec- 
tional triumphs ; but in gratitude, rather, that the country 
has triumphed, that we are all brethren still, members of 
a common and mighty household, heirs and joint heirs of a 
common country, a just government, an impartial consti- 



174 KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

tution, a wellnigh heavenly inheritance, which these dear 
brothers of ours died to uphold, and which this silent sol- 
dier shall always seem to plead, may never fade away. 

" Gentlemen of the Memorial Committee : You have 
surrendered this monument to us and our successors in 
office as a ' sacred trust.' The serious and tender words 
are well chosen, and for myself, for my associates of the 
board, for our successors in office, and for each and every 
citizen of the town, I pledge for it all the love and care and 
reverence which you so earnestly invoke. I pledge for it 
the devotion of the patriot, who shall often come and stand 
in this mute presence to thank and bless the saviors of his 
country. I pledge the strong love of the comrade soldier 
who shall linger here to greet his old companion in arms, 
and bid him hail and farewell. I pledge a brother's love 
and sister's, as with sorrowful but proud hearts they look 
up to this sad face and greet their brother. I promise the 
love of father and mother, so deep and warm as almost to 
thrill this granite statue into life and likeness of their own 
dead soldier boy. Yes, fellow citizens, we all accept the 
sacred trust, and safely promise the fondest guardianship ; 
for all the affections of human nature stand pledged to it. 
No tender office of love or gratitude or reverence shall 
ever fail thee, thou consecrated soldier, for thou shalt be 
a living presence in all our hearts and homes." 

Mr, Prescott did himself lasting honor in the above ad- 
dress, which is a sweet and beautiful tribute to a united 
country, and to that army of valiant soldiers through whose 
patriotic heroism its salvation was made secure for all 
time. I am sure that Candia and the surrounding towns 
will be interested in its reading. 

Of late years Mr. Prescott has made his home in Derry, 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 175 

where he now resides ; and there, as in Jamaica Plain, he is 
one of the foremost citizens of his adopted town. For two 
terms he represented Derry in the New Hampshire legisla- 
ture, where he was one of its most distinguished members. 
During the session of 1879 Mr. Prescott made an able 
speech on the injustice of double taxation, on which the 
New Hampshire press made favorable and complimentary 
comments. Mr. Prescott prefaced his clear-cut speech on 
taxation by declaring that " from the time when Caesar 
Augustus, then Emperor of Rome, ordered his mighty realm 
to be taxed, and when Joseph and Mary went from Naza- 
reth to Bethlehem in Judea, and found the town so full of 
people who had come there to be registered for assessment, 
that they were obliged to lodge in a stable, the history of 
all nations teaches us that the people will resist what they 
regard as unjust taxation more persistently than they will 
any other grievance. The Duke of Alva found it easier 
enforcing the Spanish inquisition than collecting his one 
penny, five penny, and ten penny taxes ; he could carry out 
the edict of Philip the Second to burn heretic women, but 
he could not compel the merchants of Antwerp, Utrecht, 
and Ghent to pay his penny tax, notwithstanding the se- 
vere discipline the people had received only a few years 
before from Charles the Second of Holland, better known 
as Charles the Fifth, King of Spain, Sicily, and Jerusa- 
lem, Duke of Milan, Emperor of Germany, Dominator in 
Asia, autocrat of half the world, — in short the mightiest 
emperor since Charlemagne." I wish this letter afforded 
space for the entire speech. It must suffice, however, to 
repeat the opinion so generally given at the time, that it 
was the ablest effort made in the New Hampshire legisla- 
ture during its session of 1879. The speech carries on its 



176 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

face a wide research of facts, and a familiarity with the en- 
tire history of taxation. The " Manchester Mirror " at the 
time of Mr. Prescott's legislative experience, wrote of him 
as follows: "Mr. Prescott is a working member of the 
legislature, closely attentive to everything that transpires, 
and thoroughly conversant with all the bills upon which 
he has to act. He talks readily and to the point, is well 
posted in parliamentary law, and has been very successful 
in shaping the work of the session to his liking." Mr. 
Prescott's public life has evinced such ability that had 
he been ambitious for political preferment he might have 
reasonably hoped for any political position which his 
adopted state of Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, his 
native state, had to give. 

Mr. Prescott has been for many years, and is still, a 
member of the board of trustees of Pinkerton Academy, 
and in charge of the Pinkerton fund, of something more 
than $200,000 held in trust for the benefit of the academy. 

Nathan B. Prescott has by persistent effort, added to 
his business ability, made his way to the very front. A 
reader of extended range, he is especially instructive in 
conversation. A few years ago he made a trip to Alaska, 
where he remained a few months studying the possibilities 
of that newly purchased territory. He and his family 
spend their winters in the South. Mr. Prescott has scored 
a decided success in life, which makes another count for 
Candia, and a larger count for himself. 



XXX 

It is the dead alone whom we see in perspective. So long 
as one is alive and jostling us in the streets, and crowding 
us in the markets, and elbowing us in the sharp competi- 
tions of business life, we are in no condition to do him 
justice. 

A near view of an object is always a one-sided view. It 
is only the far-outreaching horizon that reveals all mate- 
rial things in symmetrical proportion. An accurate history 
can only be written as long stretches of time intervene be- 
tween the historian and the subject of which he writes. To 
judge aright of character, it must be disrobed of every 
temporal quality. 

No one fears a dead man, so it is comparatively an easy 
matter to render justice over the grave of such. It is the 
man who is well on his feet and running abreast with us, 
with the possibility of coming in first on the home stretch, 
of whom we speak sparingly. It is unfortunate that the 
most of us wait until one has breathed his last before we are 
willinof to o^ive full credit to his individual life. But we 
must accept human nature as it is, thanking God all the 
while that it softens and shows its better side as it ap- 
proaches its six feet of earth. The graveyard is the only 
type of a pure democracy, for there and there alone is 
found an equality of ratios. The equation of life can never 
be solved this side of " God's acre." 

The unknown quantity in life only expresses its positive 



178 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

value when the entire equation is transferred to the " other 
side." And so it is that I write of Candia's precious dead 
in the clear light of a new revelation which gives emphasis 
to the life they lived here in the body. 

The crown of immortality underscores and italicizes the 
fundamental fact that man must go up and beyond our 
mortal vision before he can be seen as he is. 

In writing of those in Candia who have passed over the 
dividinof line between the two eternities, I come to them in 
the full possession of that unselfish appreciation which 
gives them without stint or measure the credit so long 
overdue, for work well done. That eulogy has not been 
spoken over the grave of the departed one, which has been 
excessive in its tone of commendation and praise. Nothing 
that mortal man may say of the dead will ever surpass the 
Lord's '' Well done, thou good and faithful servant." 

I now have in mind the late Rev. James H. Fitts so well 
and so affectionately remembered by his native town. Mr. 
Fitts's primary education, had in the public schools of Can- 
dia, was supplemented by his student life at Pembroke 
Academy and at Merrimack Normal Institute and at 
Lancaster, Mass. For several years he taught school in 
New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. Mr. Fitts 
did good work as a pupil and teacher. He came in living 
touch with his pupils by or through the intensely consci- 
entiijus life he lived. 

His preparatory studies for the ministry were pursued 
at Bangor Seminary, Me., and at Andover, Mass. For 
something more than twenty years he had charge of 
churches in several localities in Massachusetts, and for 
twenty years he was pastor of the Congregational church 
at Newfields. But I need not give what might be approxi- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 179 

mately a full sketch of his life, as this has already been 
done, in the published memorial of his life, and which has 
been read with peculiar pleasure and a justifiable pride by 
his home town. It is of the man I most desire to speak. 
Mr. Fitts, as I remember him, was a young man of ma- 
ture judgment, with a clear conception of duty. Into 
whatever work he did, he put his whole heart. All things 
to him had a related value. I am sure that it was quite 
impossible for Mr. Fitts to arrive at any appreciative 
value of this life, without taking into his reckoning the 
whole brotherhood of mankind. Orthodox in his religious 
views, yet he had a broad and generous love for all the 
churches of whatever denomination. He was in every way 
tolerant of those who differed from him. 

It was during a recent visit at the home of the Rev. 
Samuel C. Beane, D. D., in Newburyport, that Mr. Beane 
said to me that when a minister at Salem, Mass., Mr. Fitts 
was pastor of the Congregational church at Topsfield, and 
he added that " the relationship existing between us as 
neighbors and as ministers was of the most brotherly char- 
acter." Mr. Beane had preached in Mr. Fitts's pulpit 
through his invitation, so that it is safe to declare that the 
late Rev. James H. Fitts allowed no religious sectarian 
zeal to shut him out from any avenue leading to different 
views of God's truth. I have it upon the best of authority, 
that Mr. Fitts, while in Newfields, recognized in a practical 
way a Christian brother, by whatever denominational name 
he might be known. It was God's truth that he sought, 
and not its label. It was the full corn in the ear, and not 
the husks, that was the impelling force of Mr. Fitts's min- 
istry. His religion covered his life's work in all its varied 
departments. As a teacher in the public schools, and in 



180 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

all his official life connected with the educational world, 
his thought was how to make the most of a man out of the 
boy, and how to make the most of a woman out of the girl. 

At the commemorative services held in loving memory 
of Mr. Fitts, it was said by one of the speakers that 
" Brother Fitts believed in another world, but he believed 
in this world ; " and herein in my estimation was one of 
the strong points in his intellectual and religious make-up. 
To believe in this world with heart and soul and mind 
and might and strength, is the forerunner of that faith 
which lays hold of that other world which is the sequence 
of a belief in this present one. 

Mr. Fitts had a starting point for all the work he did, 
and that starting point was this world in which he actually 
lived. He reasoned from the known to the unknown. In 
reading the biographical sketch of Mr. Fitts in the memo- 
rial to which I have alluded I am greatly impressed with 
his busy life. 

In the Civil War he was actively interested in the 
Christian commission. In 1895 he was a member of the 
New Hampshire Legislature. He was a trustee of the New- 
fields library. He was a member of the New Hamj)shire 
Historical Society, and also a member of the New Eng- 
land Historic Genealogical Society, and for thirteen years 
he was the scribe of the Pascataqua Association of Con- 
gregational ministers. Of his long list of publications 
there are twenty annual school reports, " Genealogy of 
the Fitts Family in America," " Commemorative Services 
of the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the Sabbath School 
in West Boylston, Mass.," " Manual of the Congregational 
Church in West Boylston," " A Sketch of South New- 
market found in the History of Rockingham and Strafford 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 181 

Counties, New Hampshire," " Historical Address at the 
Rededication of the Brick Meeting House, West Boyl- 
ston," and other publications, and later, his full and inter- 
esting history of the Congregational Church in Candia. 

Mr. Fitts was a student all his life long, and always 
was enthusiastic in historical and genealogical researches. 
He believed that blood counts, so it was that he was for- 
ever on the hunt for the ancestral tree. 

He came in literal touch with the earth by studying its 
formation. He had collected some rare specimens. He 
gave a large cabinet of minerals to the schools in New- 
fields, and he also gave an interesting and valuable collec- 
tion of Indian relics to the New Hampshire Agricultural 
College. 

As a botanist, Mr. Fitts had become an authority. He 
loved nature in all her varied forms, and he appreciated 
to the full her every expression. He learned a lesson from 
every bud and blossom in field and wood, and by the 
roadside. 

He could say with the Master, " Consider the lilies of 
the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they 
spin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these." 

Candia is under many obligations to James H. Fitts 
and his brother, J. Lane Fitts, for the generous, thought- 
ful gift of the Candia Museum. It was my privilege this 
past summer to visit that interesting and instructive mu- 
seum of relics of the olden time. There one may read the 
story of the fathers and mothers of Candia. There may 
be found the history of the home town in objective form. 
In no way can this valuable gift to Candia be better ap- 
preciated than by her people adding to it year by year 



182 EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

something that shall tell future generations of the present 
Candia. Mrs. Fitts has a deep and abiding interest in the 
growth of the Candia Museum, and to it she gives much 
of her time and substantial aid. 

Mr. Fitts found time and opportunity to do much for 
the betterment of the community in which he lived, and 
for the world at large, outside of the profession which he 
so loved. He was constantly devising new means and 
methods in the accomplishment of all good. He met men 
and women just where they needed help and encourage- 
ment. He made his way through life with hands out- 
stretched, and with a heart attuned to all that is best. 
The children loved him and gathered about him, for 
they knew that in him they had a friend, while the older 
grown confided in him, and went to him for counsel and 
advice. 

Those " friendly words of love and sympathy " spoken 
immediately following Mr. Fitts's death, by his clerical 
brethren and others, are all sweet and beautiful tributes 
to a man whose life had been made radiant with the 
virtues. The memory of such a life lived by one of her 
own children is a rich legacy to Candia. 




MRS. JAMES H. FITTS 



XXXI 

" Are n't you to write further of the Candia girls ? " is 
substantially the query that comes to me from one of the 
interested readers of these " Reminiscences." Why, of 
course I am. My story of the girls of Charmingfare is 
only begun. However, I am writing of them in no logi- 
cal order, simply for the reason that I much prefer to 
keep my readers in an expectant, guessing mood as to 
what is coming next. As I have already said in some pre- 
vious chapter, there is a real enjoyment to me in doing 
things in an irregular way. There is the most abandoned 
pleasure in writing without the least reference to that 
unyielding and orderly way of doing things as taught 
in the schools. The truth is, I am trying to forget, so 
far as this is possible, every rule of English composition 
that I have ever learned under the instruction of the wise 
schoolmaster, and so tell my story in the simplest and 
most natural way. And I am trying my best to forget 
the " first, secondly, thirdly " and so on which are so fre- 
quently found in your formally made writers. Why not 
write as we talk ? He is the better rhetorician who throws 
his rhetoric into the waste basket, and. he is the better 
writer who is profoundly ignorant of the rules laid down 
in the books. Nature is the best story-teller in all the wide 
world. Learn of her, then you cannot fail to make your- 
self understood. 

The difficulty with our public schools is the unfortunate 



184 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

fact that in their machine way of doing things they get so 
far apart from all that is true in the natural world, that 
they oftentimes become a hindrance in the lesson to be 
learned. Our whole method of instruction should be so 
inverted that the children would become our instructors, 
while we older grown should take our places on the 
learner's bench. 

In our haste to do things so methodically and by rule, 
we have got the cart before the horse, so only a trained eye 
can tell which way we are going. 

This much I say concerning the stereotype method 
of talking and writing that I may give emphasis to my 
utter dislike of the everlasting rules that kill out all 
natural expression. 

In telling this story of Candia as I remember her, 
I am having my own way without curb or bit. And thus 
it is that I am following no order or method in this review 
writing. So don't try to guess what is coming next, for 
you can't do it. 

In continuing my story of the Candia girls, I now have 
in mind Miss Lucinda T. Prescott, sister of Nathan B. 
Prescott, of whom I wrote in chapter XXIX. 

Miss Prescott was for several years a teacher in Mt. 
Holyoke Seminary, and subsequently she was a member of 
the faculty for some years in the college at Painesville, O. 

That one should hold such prominent positions for 
a long term of years as did Miss Prescott in the educa- 
tional world, gives a conspicuous ranking in all intellec- 
tual training. Miss Prescott as a pupil in the schools 
gave promise of that wider field of scholarship in which 
she has proven herself such a pronounced factor. Miss 
Prescott has her home with her brother Nathan in Derry. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 185 

There are those in Candia who remember Susan A. 
Prescott, daughter of the late Edward P. Prescott, who at 
one time had a store at Candia Depot. Miss Prescott 
married the Rev. Ethnan W. Porter, a prominent Bap- 
tist minister. Mrs. Porter became distinguished as a 
writer in prose and poetry, and director and organizer 
of the woman's association of the religious denomination 
in which her husband was one of the leading clergymen. 
I well remember Mrs. Porter and her sister, the late wife 
of Moses B. Smith of Concord. They were unusually 
bright and attractive girls, and an honor to all that is 
best in womanhood. 

Then there was Miss Elizabeth G. Beane, who married 
the Rev. Atwood B. Meservey, Ph. D., and D. D., who for 
thirty years was principal of New Hampshire Literary 
Institute. Mrs. Meservey died early in her married life, 
and yet she had taken high rank in the intellectual and 
literary world for her scholarly attainments. She was 
recognized as a writer of rare ability. A woman was Mrs. 
Meservey who shrank from all notoriety, and yet the 
intellectual public found her and highly estimated her 
as a conspicuous leader in the world of morals and in 
the world of intellect. Mrs. Meservey was a sister of the 
Rev. Dr. Samuel C. Beane of Lawrence. 

Another of the Candia girls who have made their way 
in life is Mrs. Consuelo Policy Osborne. Mrs. Osborne 
is the granddaughter of the late John P. L. Rowe, whose 
home was on High Street. 

Mrs. Osborne's primary education was had in the little 
red schoolhouse in district No. 6. It is kind and thought- 
ful of her that she has so many pleasant words to say of 
her early teachers in Candia, — Sarah Turner, who is now 



186 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Mrs. Smith of Somerville, Mass., Lucinda Howe Worthen, 
Susan Libbey, and Augusta Smith, the late wife of J. Lane 
Fitts. Mrs. Osborne, when twelve years of age, entered 
the Springfield (Mass.) High School, from which, after a 
four years' course of study, she graduated among the very 
first of her class. Immediately following her graduation 
she entered the Springfield Training School for Teachers, 
and upon graduating therefrom she was placed in charge 
of a room in one of the city graded schools, which position 
she held for five years, and then was made principal of a 
building containing several rooms. She resigned this po- 
sition for married life. A few years later, when her fame 
had gone abroad as a teacher, she was elected to one of 
the schools in Minneapolis, Minn., and was soon there- 
after made supervisory principal, which position she has 
held for eighteen years, being at the present time at the 
head of one of the largest schools in Minneapolis. Mrs. 
Osborne declares that any success she may have attained 
in her profession, is due to the kindly interest and encour- 
agement shown her by her old teacher, Charles Barrows, 
distinguished as an educator throughout New England, 
and who was for more than fifty years identified with the 
schools of Springfield. 

Mrs. Osborne is a teacher who well understands the 
philosophy of education ; and that she has for eighteen 
years maintained her present important position in so live 
an educational city as Minneapolis, puts her in the front 
rank of her profession. Aside from her work as teacher, 
Mrs. Osborne has found time to contribute to the news- 
paper and magazine world. She writes with an incisive 
pen. Having the courage of her convictions, she gives 
frank and emphatic expression to her innermost thought. 




MRS. MARY JANE PALMER DOLBER 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 187 

With an ability that is pronounced, and with a courage 
that sees no lion in the way, Mrs. Osborne has made her- 
self master of the situation, through that intense personal 
force of character which cuts through the mountain, and 
makes a way over Alps that are pathless. She has com- 
manded success, and it has invariably followed her lead. 

I should be sadly wanting in all brotherly affection and 
love were I not to write of my sister, the late Mrs. Walter 
R. Dolber. She was a woman in touch with all that was 
sweetest and best in the material and immaterial world. 
Life to her was a joy because in it she recognized God's 
richest gift. Mrs. Dolber dwelt in a world of sentiment 
as well as in a world of prosy fact. 

A lover of nature, she received in largest measure her 
infinity of expression. A lover of her home, it became the 
very centre in which she moved and lived. With a mind 
keenly alive to all intellectual pursuits, she gave many 
years of her life to the schools. She loved the children, 
and the children loved her. 

She lived a life made fragrant with the virtues, and 
every brother of hers was drawn to her through Iier great 
love for them. At the meeting of the Candia Club two 
years ago, a poem of hers was read which proved her fare- 
well to the town she so greatly loved. The closing words 
of her verse were as follows : — 

" Beautiful of situation is Candia, our mother town ; 
Her far-off hills and vales of green, 
Like a fair Beulah-land are seen. 

" Her rocks and rills, woodland and plain, 
Each well remembered spot 's the same 
As when they drew our eager feet. 
And made of life a joy complete. 



188 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

" Regretfully * We cannot come ' 

Has written many an absent one. 
* Remember us at Candia hill, 

Ever yours in friendship still.* 

" With hearts so true our faith will trust 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must : 
Not as we meet and part to-day, 
But meet to part no more for aye." 

Why, the story of Candia with her girls left out, would 
be a revelation with the four gospels wanting. 



XXXII 

A CONTINUOUS journey is not unlikely to become more or 
less tiresome, however attractive the line of travel may 
be ; so there is need now and then of a halt along the 
roadside, that one may enjoy a good long stretch, and a 
yawn, while he takes a look about him and exchanges a 
story or two with his traveling companion to somewhat 
relieve the monotony. 

So let us rest a bit that we may take in something of 
the funnier side of life. I '11 venture that there is no one 
of the older people of Candia who does not pleasantly 
remember Jacob Mead — everybody called him " Jake " 
for short, not from any disrespect had of the man, but on 
the other hand by reason of that neighborly familiarity 
which was the outgrowth of that friendship evinced for 
him wherever he was known. To me there is something 
especially agreeable and pleasant in an abbreviated name. 
To be addressed as Jake, Joe, Jim, or Bill, or Sue or Polly 
or Dot, and so on to the end of the list, is an assurance of 
that good faith and whole-soul cordiality which are an 
equivalent to the " Come in and sup with me." 

I have a few choice friends who invariably call me 
" Wils," and it is to my great delight that they do so. 
Whenever I am addressed as " Wils " I feel that I have 
experienced a new birth, and thus been born again into 
the kingdom of youth. So there can be no reason why I 
should apologize in referring here to the late Jacob Mead 



190 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

as the Jake Mead whom every one in Candia knew a half 
century ago. At that time Jake lived on the place now 
owned by George Brown, and it was always a delight to 
see him coming up the "cross-road," for we all knew he 
would have something bright and interesting to say. One 
could always identify Jake from afar — he had a peculiar 
gait as he made his way along the road. No one walked 
just as Jake Mead did. Instead of making a straight line 
when footing it, he had a sort of a swing and a lurch from 
one side of the road to the other ; but he never failed to 
" get there " in his own good time. In the winter time, 
when making his friendly calls upon the neighbors, he 
seldom or never failed to bring up at the Palmer shoe 
shop, a little way down the road from the Palmer home. 

I shall never forget how, after the morning greetings 
had passed between the boys and Jake, he would sit down 
before that little bit of a stove in the shoe shop and pull 
off his boots for a foot warming. I mention this incident 
because Jake's feet were of the generous size that when 
once planted on mother earth, they were not likely to be 
tripped up by the first pair of narrow boot heels that came 
along. Jake Mead literally had an understanding in keep- 
ing with his massive form. 

In conversation he was a wit of the first order, and rich 
in anecdote. To listen to one of his stories was a whole 
education in itself. It was on a June morning when rid- 
ing out with a friend, they made the village graveyard on 
their way, when Jake suggested that they make a halt so 
as to visit the graves, and read the epitaphs on the head- 
stones. The friend replied to the suggestion by saying : 
" Jake, you go and take a stroll among the graves, and I 
will sit here in the carriage and await your return ; " 



i 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 191 

whereupon Jake went. Upon his return his friend asked 
him what he had found among the dead to interest him. 
Jake's suggestive answer was this : " I have hunted all 
over this graveyard to find the grave of a sinner, but not 
one is to be found if the epitaphs are to be believed." 
And then Jake added, Shakespeare was wrong when he 
declared that, " The evil men do lives after them ; the 
good is oft interred with their bones." Had the quaint, 
bright sayings of Jake Mead been saved and gathered up 
as they were spoken, they would have made a most read- 
able and instructive volume. 

Years ago, nearly all the farmers in Candia, temperate 
people though they were, invariably had their jug of New 
England rum to give inspiration and to helj) along the 
haying season. My father always took a moderate glass 
of that which cheers after his mowing of the forenoon was 
done, and another moderate glass at the end of his day's 
work in the hay field, and it did him good. Temperance 
consists in the temperate use of all things, and not in one's 
self-denial of them. Well, it was on a severely hot day 
in August that Jake was helping father in swinging the 
scythe. When the last swath had been mown Jake joined 
father in that historic glass of rum, and then smacking 
his lips with evident relish, he said, " Mr. Palmer, I wish 
my throat was as long as the Androscoggin river and 
twice as crooked." 

Jake Mead saw the funny side of everything, whether 
it counted for him or against him. He used to tell with 
much zest how at one time there was due him from some 
man with whom he had had business dealings, sixteen 
dollars and fifty cents, and after vainly attempting to 
collect the indebtedness, he placed the bill in the hands of 



192 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

the late Lawyer Porter of Derry, for collection. 'Squire 
Porter, after bringing the matter before a jury in one of 
the lower courts, succeeded in collecting the debt. Upon 
meeting Jake, the 'squire said, '' I have recovered the face 
of your bill," whereupon Jake replied, '* I am greatly 
pleased," and then asked, " What are your charges?" to 
which 'Squire Porter replied, " Sixteen dollars and fifty 
cents." "Well," Jake asked, "but what do I get?" 
" Oh," the 'squire answered, " you get the case." 

Jacob Mead had a level head with a brain that was 
always projecting some plan on which to operate. It was 
not often that one was able to get ahead of him. He in- 
variably had his wits about him, so that he could summon 
them at once. A man of generous nature, and eminently 
social, he made himself one of the most agreeable of 
neighbors. 

Then there was the late Cyrus Prescott, to whom I 
have made passing reference in a previous letter. Cyrus 
Prescott was the quaintest of characters. His sayings 
contained the logic of the logician and the wit of the hu- 
morist. A book agent called upon Mr. Prescott at one 
time before breakfast, and would have pestered the life 
out of him, had he not met him with arguments which 
were unanswerable. After much entreaty on the part of 
the book agent, Cyrus replied after this wise: "No, I 
want none of your books, for I now have more books than 
I can read, and I read more than I can remember, and I 
remember more than I can practice." Whately never 
produced better logic than the above. 

In my early boyhood I worked one season with and for 
Cyrus upon his farm, so that I came to know him well. 
It was in the summer of 1847, that same summer in which 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 193 

his father died. I remember that during his father's last 
illness, the Rev. Mr. Murdock called one day to see him. 
Upon leaving, Mr. Murdock said to Mrs. Prescott that 
he was to be out of town for a few days, so that in case 
of Mr. Prescott's death she and her husband would be 
obliged to call in some other minister. When Cyrus re- 
turned home from his work, Mrs. Prescott told him what 
Mr. Murdock had said, to which Cyrus replied after this 
fashion : " Well, Hannah, why did n't you tell Mr. Mur- 
dock that we don't propose to bury father until he is 
dead." 

Mr. Prescott saw at first sight the propriety of things. 
His good sense would not allow him to anticipate the 
event of death so far as to make preparation for the 
funeral rites before the sad event occurred. 

It was at the time his father lay dead in the house, 
that I, with something of a stentorian voice, in boyish for- 
ge tfulness went about the house talking in my usual tone 
of voice, when Cyrus said, " Wilson, I see you are deter- 
mined to wake father up." Cyrus Prescott's quaint and 
incisive sayings were always intensely suggestive, and re- 
plete with the keenest wit. 

I must again refer to the late James Critchet, some of 
whose bright sayings I have already reproduced. On a 
certain occasion Mr. Critchet seemed to be the only man 
to be found in his neighborhood who could conveniently 
entertain over Sunday an itinerant minister who was to 
preach in the Colcord schoolhouse on the following Sab- 
bath. The minister presented himself promptly Saturday 
evening at the home of Mr. Critchet, where he was cor- 
dially welcomed by the host. 

On Sunday morning after breakfast, the minister 



194 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

asked for a Bible, saying he would like to conduct fam- 
ily prayers. Mr. Critchet at once set himself astir 
hunting for a Bible, but somehow it happened that he 
could not readily find one. He hunted high and low, and 
was only able to find a few scattered leaves of the Holy 
Book. Handing these to the minister, and at the same 
time addressing Mrs. Critchet, he said, *' Wife, why did n't 
you tell me we were so near out of Bible ? " It is said 
that Mr. Critchet put the first stove in his house that was 
ever had in Candia. It was one of the coldest days of the 
winter time that he brought it home ; so cold that Mr. 
Critchet said he would have frozen to death on his way 
home had it not been for that stove. 

Oh, these quaint people ! How could the world get along 
without them ? They give a silver lining to the cloud and 
a healthful zest to life. 

Well, dear reader, we have had our rest along the road- 
side, and we have enjoyed a good long stretch and a yawn 
while we have told each other our funniest stories. So 
now I am ready to jog along, always reserving the right 
" to go as you please." 



XXXIII 

There is always an inspiration in writing of a life crowned 
with many years, and yet retaining all the mental vigor of 
an earlier day. In spite of his eighty-six years, Austin Cass 
keeps himself well abreast with all that is latest and best 
in the intellectual world. 

An omnivorous reader all his life long, he has kept him- 
self familiar not only with current events, but equally 
familiar with our best authors. 

His reading has been with a clear understanding of the 
subject discussed. In his conversation Mr. Cass states 
himself with all the precision with which one states a 
proposition in geometry, and his demonstration of the 
same has about it and in it the accuracy- of the severest 
logic. In my call upon Mr. Cass last summer, I felt my- 
self in the presence of one who is authority upon a variety 
of subjects. He is the wiser man who when in conversa- 
tion with Austin Cass allows him to do the larger part 
of the talking while he sits a quiet listener. 

Nathan B. Prescott once said to me that soon after his 
return from Alaska, during a call upon Mr. Cass, he was 
telling him something of that wonderful territory, when he 
soon discovered that Mr. Cass, from his reading, knew 
more than he did of Alaska. Mr. Cass has read with a 
definite purpose in view, and what he has read he has made 
his own. With a retentive memory his mind is a store- 
bouse of facts. And what is quite remarkable for one of 



196 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

his years, not content with what he has learned from the 
books, he is still on the learner's bench. Such a man can 
never grow old, for he constantly lives in an atmosphere of 
intellectual youth. Mr. Cass has grown with the years. He 
has never hesitated to let go his hold of an old idea, for a 
newer and a better one, so that in his religion and in his 
politics he represents all that is modern in both church 
and state. He has kept himself constantly in a state of 
mental receptivity, looking out for the best, and readily 
taking it when found. 

Pinning his faith to no man's coat-sleeve, he has formed 
his own opinion of men and things. Quick to detect the 
sham of the religious pretender, and the lie of the political 
trickster, he has worshiped no false God, neither has he 
done obeisance to the political aspirant who has been will- 
ing to sell his birthright for official position. 

In a word, Mr. Cass has kept step with that newer and 
later civilization which has revealed God and man anew. 
The question has been with him and still is, not that of 
yesterday, but that of to-day. He lives in an intensely 
vital present, so the years with him mark only the succes- 
sive and progressive steps in his world of advanced thought. 

I write thus positively of Mr. Cass, for all Candia knows 
as well as I, that he has a marked individuality, charac- 
terized by all that is honest and by all that is independent 
in a manly way, and by all that is clearly intelligent. 

It was my delight when a boy to listen to Mr. Cass, as 
I occasionally did, in discussion of some public interest. 
He always stated himself so concisely and so intelligibly 
that no one could easily mistake his meaning — and then 
in the discussion of any question relating to the world of 
letters, he invariably evinced an extended reading. As 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 197 

moderator for years in the annual town meetings of Candia, 
Mr. Cass distinguished himself through his parliamentary- 
way of doing things. For several terms he served upon the 
school committee in Candia, and brought efficient aid to 
the educational interests of the town. As a member of the 
state legislature, he served his constituency with an ability 
that gave him a conspicuous standing among the leading 
men of the state; so much so, that the late Governor 
Smyth was anxious that Mr. Cass should allow his name 
to come before the people as a candidate for Congress. 
Absolutely without the least selfish political ambition, he 
had no desire for Congressional honors. Had he become a 
member of our national legislature, he could hardly have 
failed to prove a leader in that honorable body. 

Mr. Cass has filled nearly every official position of his 
town, and what is better than all else, he has given charac- 
ter and dignity to every office that has come to him. In all 
his belief Mr. Cass is an optimist and a liberalist. He be- 
lieves in the best, and he is more than willing that others 
should share it with him. He does not for a moment be- 
lieve the world was made in six days, neither does he 
believe it is going to the bad. He has a large faith in the 
human kind. He gives little credit to the written saying 
that it repented God that He ever created man. He accepts 
a new truth at the very moment it is discovered. He lets 
the dead past bury its dead. He lives in the present and 
appropriates to himself all that it has to give. It is a rare 
pleasure to meet Mr. Cass, and the hour passed with him 
is always an instructive one. Out of the storehouse of his 
knowledge he brings things new and old. 

Then there is the late Joseph Langford, who was one of 
Candia's foremost citizens. Mr. Langford was honored 



198 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

during his lifetime in an official way year after year by the 
people of his town. A man of rare judgment and with a 
keen intellectual perception, he spoke with authority. 

I lived in earlier life for a year or more in near neigh- 
borhood to Mr. Langford, so that I came to know him well. 
He, like Mr. Cass, was a reader of extended range. He al- 
ways kept in touch with the events of the day. A man 
who made haste slowly, he was always sure of his ground. 

That was invariably a restful hour when one found 
himself in the presence of Joseph Langford. He took the 
world as it came to him. He was never known to worry 
or fret over what could not be helped, and yet he was 
among the first in his attempt to better things. Always 
instructive in his conversation, he drew about him many an 
attentive listener. At his home in East Candia he was 
especially loved and revered by every man, woman, and 
child in his neighborhood. He was a peacemaker, and 
more than once had he settled disputes which had it not 
been for him, would have found their way into the courts. 
" Ask 'Squire Langford, he will tell you how it is," was the 
frequent saying among his neighbors. Unassuming in all 
his ways, he was a man in whom the public confided with- 
out a question of his honesty and ability. It is such a man 
as was 'Squire Langford, who brings honor to the com- 
munity in which he lives. He moved in an atmosphere so 
serene and peaceful that it was simply delightful to come 
into his presence. 

Of the present generation, are we having those who fill 
the places of the generation gone before ? is a question that 
will not down ; and yet I will not, I cannot, doubt that the 
world at large is growing better. To-day is only the pro- 
mise of a better to-morrow. 



XXXIV 

In writing of Benjamin Franklin Brown, son of tlie late 
Jonathan Brown, a lifelong resident of Candia, I am some- 
what in doubt just where to begin, and I am still in greater 
doubt where to end what I am to say concerning his es- 
pecially successful and busy life. Mr. Brown, as did other 
Candia boys, sought his primary education in the common 
district school, supplementing it, however, with a generous 
course in academic instruction. As a boy hardly out of 
his teens he started out for himself with an ability and 
will which have served him well in every position he has 
filled both in private and public life. For several years 
Mr. Brown was engaged in teaching in Massachusetts, and 
an excellent teacher he was in every department of our 
New England public schools. As a disciplinarian Mr. 
Brown had few equals. There was no school so difficult 
of management that he could not govern it, and have it 
in working, obedient order in the shortest possible time. 

It was in the winter of 1854 and '55 that I taus^ht the 
winter term of school in Byfield, Mass., a school which 
previous to my time had been distinguished for its boys 
of rebellious spirit. After it was known that I was from 
Candia, N. H., I heard on every side how that Benjamin 
F. Brown had taught the Byfield school a few winters be- 
fore, and how he had brought order out of chaos, and 
taught the unruly boys, men grown, a healthful lesson of 
obedience to all reasonable requirements. In the school- 



200 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

room Mr. Brown was invariably master. His word was 
law, and the big boys came very soon to recognize in a 
loyal way this fact. In 1856, Mr. Brown went to Charles- 
town, Mass., and opened an insurance office ; a short time 
afterward he moved to his present office in the Bunker 
Hill National Bank building, where he still carries on the 
insurance business under the firm name of B. F. Brown & 
Sons. In the insurance world Mr. Brown has a conspicu- 
ous standing. 

His nearly fifty years of experience in fire insurance 
has made him an authority in his department of business. 
While a resident of Charlestown he was for several terms 
a prominent member of the common council, and for six 
years he was an important factor on the school board of 
the city. As a matter of fact, Mr. Brown was regarded 
one of the leading citizens of Charlestown. He and his 
family moved to Lexington, Mass., in 1876, where they at 
present reside. For six years he was a member of the 
school board in Lexington, and there as in Charlestown, 
he has proved himself a leading citizen of that historic 
town. Mr. Brown married the only daughter of the late 
William Dalrymple, who was a prominent resident of 
Charlestown. 

Mrs. Brown is a woman of rare culture, and a great 
lover of all that is beautiful in nature and in art. Her 
home in Lexington is adorned with many of her own paint- 
ings, executed with all that artistic taste which belongs to 
the profession of refined art. Mr. Brown was a charter 
member of the Congregational Club of Boston, and is still 
a member of the same. 

Mr. and Mrs. Brown have been world-wide travelers, 
having crossed the Atlantic six times, and visited over and 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 201 

over again every country in Europe. It is only recently 
they made a tour of the world, being gone three years. Mrs. 
Brown has written, and has in book form a record of the 
six visits on the other side of the waters, and the trip 
around the world which she and Mr. Brown have made. 
There are some twenty or more of these published volumes 
written especially for their own private library. Could 
Mr. and Mrs. Brown be induced to give these published 
records to the public, the information to be gained there- 
from would be invaluable to that army of readers who 
would be naturally drawn to them. 

But it is of Mr. Brown's delightful home in Lexington 
that I most desire to write, for it is the home that more 
accurately tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Their 
palatial residence is on Hancock Street, one of the most 
attractive streets of the town. I say " palatial residence," 
for such it really is, and yet it has about it and in it, all 
the atmosphere of " love in a cottage." The rich and elab- 
orate furnishino^s of the house have been effected with all 
that skill and taste, that nothing is lost in domesticity. 
From Mr. Brown's study, throughout every room of the 
many rooms in his house, there is to be found the " home, 
sweet home " of the poet. As I sat only a few days ago 
in Mr. Brown's library with those distinguished authors 
looking out upon me from their living pages, I said to 
myself, " What can be more delightful than this ? " And 
this I repeated to myself as I went through the many 
rooms of his home, each of which reminded one of the opu- 
lence of the far East, for Mr. and Mrs. Brown had brought 
home from their visit around the world something of the 
wealth and cunning art of those far-off countries. Mr. 
Brown's home is a kingdom come to every lover of art, and 



202 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

then his library ! With what evident care it has been se- 
lected ! There, in his study, one may hold sweet converse 
with the world's most distinguished writers. The immediate 
surroundings of Mr. Brown's residence are in happy keep- 
ing with the house itself. 

Just imagine a home of modern architecture, with a 
spacious hall, and with rooms as spacious, surrounded with 
ten acres of lawn neatly kept. In front, the grounds are 
most inviting, and equally so are the grounds in the rear 
of the house. Within ready reach, back of the house, is 
a picturesque oak grove, a fit temple in which the proudest 
Roman of them all might during the summer time take 
his lunch in a half reclining position, or where the Chris- 
tian might devoutly worship. 

There is no home in or about Boston that is richer in 
art and in all that refined taste so characteristic of schol- 
arly attainments and culture, than is Mr. Brown's. And 
yet, with all Mr. Brown's success in life, and with all his 
knowledge gleaned from every quarter of the globe, he 
has not lost anything of his love and affection for Candia. 

While present at the Candia Club two years ago, he took 
occasion to revisit his old home. It was during a morn- 
ing drive at that time, that I found him and Mrs. Brown, 
with his brothers, George and wife and Henry and wife, 
gathered about the old homestead, reviewing the years 
gone by. I made a halt and with them visited every 
room in their old home. 

I am sure that with all Mr. Brown's world-wide experi- 
ence in travel, and the invaluable knowledge gained there- 
from, and right in face of his inviting home in Lexington, 
he has in no way forgotten his first love for the paternal 
home that gave him birth. 



I 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 203 

Whenever I meet Benjamin Franklin Brown he never 
fails to ask of and for Candia. He remembers with an 
affection that does him honor the generation in Candia 
that has passed over to the " other side," and always does 
he speak of those " gone before " with a loyal love. 

Not to forget one's early home, however opulent his pre- 
sent abiding place, made doubly attractive with surround- 
ings both artistic and unique, is nothing other than that 
great, overshadowing love for father and mother, and for 
brothers and sisters, which will live on not only through 
the years, but through all the eternities. Mr. Brown with 
a manly pride dates his reckoning from Candia. 

Mr. Brown is a generous and -^ entertaining host in his 
beautiful Lexington home. His latch-string is always out 
to his friends, and especially to any one from his native 
town. 

No visit to the historic town of Lexington is complete, 
that does not take in the home of Benjamin Franklin 
Brown, a Candia boy. 



XXXV 

In writing of the Candia girls, Mrs. James H. Fitts, 
she who was Celina French, must have prominent men- 
tion, for Mrs. Fitts is a woman of pronounced ability and 
of rare executive power. 

As a girl in the district school she always maintained 
an excellent standing in scholarship. She learned readily 
in every department of study. It was a pleasure to listen 
to her recital in the class, both on account of her clear 
understanding of the lesson, and her easy flow of language 
in expressing the same. Mrs. Fitts received a liberal edu- 
cation in the higher institutions of learning, and had a 
successful experience in teaching. As a minister's wife 
her life has been a busy and helpful one. She was the 
right hand of Mr. Fitts in all his clerical and pastoral 
work, and I do not question had she chosen the pulpit for 
her field of labor, she would have received a " call " in 
preference to many a male D. D. 

Mrs. Fitts is peculiarly happy in any public expression 
she makes, so much so that she easily holds the closest 
attention of her audience. Both in public and private 
conversation Mrs. Fitts impresses the listener with her 
earnest and interesting way of putting things. Into what- 
ever she does she puts heart and soul, so her work is made 
alive through her own intense life. As a member of the 
Rockingham County W. C. T. Board, she brought to it 
her best efforts, and did much in furthering its interest. 



X*-' 



'#t 



^ 



f 



I 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BROWN 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 205 

For several years she was secretary of the board. She is 
now and has been for many years a prominent member of 
the State Auxiliary of the Woman's Board of Missions, 
and at present its vice-president. At one time Mrs. Fitts 
was editor of the " Granite State Outlook." Mrs. Fitts, 
as now, has always been engaged in some philanthropic 
work, and she has been and is now a leader in the same 
generous well-doing for the good of others. 

During my last visit in Candia, a prominent citizen of 
the town told me with what pleasure he recalled those 
Sunday evening meetings. Mrs. Fitts before her marriage 
conducted at her father's home, the late Coffin M. French, 
a children's class, that she might teach the boys and girls 
to sing the Sunday school songs then in use. 

Mrs. Fitts, with a nature sensitive to all that is good, 
and with her early home education, has, in an atmosphere 
where the virtues were taught, not only by precept, but 
by example as well, naturally come up into a womanhood 
whose desire has been and is for the accomplishment of 
that which is best for men and women everywhere, and in 
her attempt to effect all this, she, in a logical way, inva- 
riably begins her work with the children. 

I must again refer to the Candia Museum, which is the 
thoughtful and generous gift of her husband, the late 
James H. Fitts, and of his brother, J. Lane Fitts, and I 
may safely add that Mrs. Fitts is no small contributor 
to that museum of relics, which Candia so greatly prizes. 
Mrs. Fitts is continually doing something to further the 
interests of this valuable institution of education, whose 
curriculum of study is largely made up of the years 
gone by. 

For the past few summers I have had the pleasure of 



206 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

meetinir Mrs. Fitts in Candia, and never has she failed to 
invite me to visit the Candia Museum. I, with the people 
of my native town, feel myself under obligation to Mr. 
and Mrs. James H. Fitts, and to the brother, J. Lane 
Fitts, for this beautiful and loving reminder of the fathers 
and mothers of the past generation. Mrs. Fitts has given 
emphasis to the fact that will stand good for all time, that 
woman is not only the " helpmeet " of the man, but that 
she is his equal in all the manifold duties of life. 

Mrs. Fitts scores another point for school district No. 
4, and a good big point, too. 

I have had occasion heretofore to write something of 
the poets or poetesses of Candia and of their verse. To 
that number is to be added the name of Miss Ellen S. 
Eaton, of whose occasional writings in verse, the author 
of the " Vacant Chair," the late Henry W. Washburn, a 
poet distinguished in all that constitutes the " divine art," 
spoke in terms of highest commendation and praise. 

The following lines of Miss Eaton's I reproduce from 
a New York paper, of a date some years back. The verse 
is under the head of " Transformation," and written, I 
imagine, as the last rays of the sunset were reflected from 
glimpses of the Massabesic as seen from her home. The 
poetry reads as follows : — 

" Once in an unfamiliar room 

That looked where sunset lay, 
I sat amid the dusky gloom 
From broken clouds of gray. 

" Without, the deepening shadows blent, 
Of land and sky a part, 
The haunting shades stole up and lent 
Within their mystic art. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 207 

" They strayed into the carven hall, 
Retraced its quaint design, 
Retouched the picture on the wall, 
In varying tone and line ! 

" They deadened tint and softened light, 
And Fancy's witchery grew, 
Then glimmering cloud rifts ! sheens of white ! 
And all things made anew ! 

" For wide an entering glory spread 
With sudden arrowy blaze, 
In richest gold and ruby red, 
And violet, mingled rays ! 

" It touched the landscape — wondrously 
The near from far defined ; 
It crept into the hall — and see 
How clear its traceries lined ! 

" It stole upon the canvas, too ; 
The shadows fled, and lo. 
An in-bound ship — the port in view — 
With sea and land aglow ! 

" Along its distant ocean-track, 

The clouds their gray wings furl. 
With gleams athwart them shining back, 
In amber, rose, and pearl ! 

" An artist's vision, true, thought I, 
For after clouds and night, 
Transformed the past and present lie 
In all-revealing light" 

Miss Eaton sang with the spirit and with the under- 
standing in the above verse, for she had caught the sweet 
sentiment of that brilliantly dying day which threw about 
her a charm which could only be expressed in song. 



208 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

I have with no little pride reproduced these lines on 
" Transformation," as they so clearly prove what I have 
always believed, that the muses have their home in many 
a picturesque nook and corner in Candia. • And why 
should n't they have ? For nowhere have I seen more 
attractive landscape scenery and more bewitching water 
views than are to be seen in Charmingfare. And then 
those sunsets ! Where are their like elsewhere to be found ? 

Miss Eaton has been and is still a pronounced factor in 
all charitable and church work. The success of the Church 
on the Hill owes much to her. For years, she conducted 
the musical part of the service. The Candia Congrega- 
tional Church has no interest in which Miss Eaton does 
not actively share. 

Miss Eaton evidently kept herself in closest touch with 
nature during her school life in that higher institution of 
learning, Abbott's Female Seminary, Andover, Mass., of 
which school she is a graduate. At one time she was a 
pupil under one of the most distinguished teachers in 
vocal music in Boston. Why is n't it possible for the boys 
and girls of to-day to take along with their school studies 
the lessons to be learned in the world all about them ? 

That pupil makes the most of the schools, who does not 
allow them to shut out the beautiful that God has spread 
out so bountifully on every side. 

Happy is that man or woman who " finds tongues in 
trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and 
good in everything." All this Miss Eaton has found, or 
otherwise she could not give such sweet expression in 
verse to that which is most exquisite in a world of God's 
own make. 

Were I to begin life over again as a teacher, nature 




MISS ELLEN S. EATON 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 209 

should first of all be my text-book, and from it the boys 
and girls should receive their first lessons. Many a pupil 
now in the public schools holds the text-book laid down 
in the course of study so close to his eyes that he shuts 
out from his sight God's illimitable universe. 

The educational world has substantially inverted the 
axiom " the whole is greater than any of its parts," so that 
now it practically reads, any one of the parts is greater 
and more important than the whole. 

It is made clearly evident all through David's writings 
that he attuned his harp to nature's sweetest note. Listen 
to him for a moment : '' The Lord is my shepherd, I shall 
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. 
He leadeth me beside the still waters." How from an 
Eastern morning he pictures the coming in of the King 
himself! "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye 
lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall 
come in." With what poetical sentiment the sweet singer 
of Israel teaches the omnipresence of Deity ! " If I take 
the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea ; even there shall thy hand lead me and thy 
right hand shall hold me." " The heavens declare the glory 
of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work." " The 
earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof ; the world and 
they that dwell therein." " Unto thee will I cry, O Lord 
my rock." " Before the mountains were brought forth, 
or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even 
from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." " Let 
the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad ; let the sea 
roar and the fulness thereof." " Let the field be joyful 
and all that is therein ; then shall all the trees of the 
wood rejoice." David surely was in touch with nature in 



210 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

all her varied forms, and so it is that his songs have come 
down to us through the ages, having lost not a single 
note of their divine harmony. 

Let our public schools receive their first and last lesson 
of nature, and then shall they enter into the spirit and 
understanding of the Psalmist and sing of the world and 
all that is therein. 

I am glad that Candia is still in possession of that art 
born of nature, in which the painter delights and of which 
the poet sings. 



XXXVI 

There was no brighter boy in my home neighborhood 
fifty years ago than Ansel Emerson. "Ause"was the 
familiar name by which he was known. 

I do not accurately recall how he stood in his studies, 
but I well remember that the boy who would get the lead 
of Anse had to get up early in the morning and stay 
awake the whole day long with his two eyes wide open, 
and even then he was likely to come out second best. 
Anse recognized a joke at first sight, and he was equal to 
any professional in cracking one. A jolly good fellow that 
he was, and bright as a new silver dollar, he was a general 
favorite a half century ago, not only with the boys, but with 
the older grown of the neighborhood. Somehow, I don't 
know how, Anse could joke with Deacon Patten, Deacon 
French, his uncle, the Hon. Abraham Emerson, my father, 
and others of the older grown, and it was all taken in 
good part, for Anse in some way peculiar to himself seemed 
to fit all ages and all times ; so he had a certain license in 
speech which did not belong to the rest of us boys. 

It was while working out the road tax in the long ago 
in district No. 4 that several large rocks had to be dug 
out from the roadbed in order to make the highway more 
easily passable. Anse had had two or three hard tugs at 
the lever, but without avail, when turning to Deacon Pat- 
ten he said in his ever-bubbling spirit of fun and good 
nature, " Now, Deacon, you pry this time, and I will look 



212 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

on and grunt." Everybody under the old district system 
of road-mending took a peculiar pride in doing as little as 
he could in working out his road tax. It was always a pic- 
nic to the boys to work on the roads, and the older grown 
enjoyed it hardly less. So stories and all sorts of sharp, 
pithy sayings were the order of the district road-day. 

It was on one of these annual occasions of repairing 
the roads that Anse, with a twinkle in his eye and with 
a smile playing around the corner of his mouth, jollied 
his uncle Abraham Emerson after this wise : " Say, Uncle 
Abraham, when you and father were boys together at the 
old home, father had to do all the work, did n't he ? " 
" Why, no, Anse. What makes you ask ? " replied his 
uncle Abraham. " Oh, I thought," said Anse, " that if 
you worked as a boy as you work on the roads, father must 
have done all the work at home." Now, Anse could easily 
adapt himself to the years, however many they might be 
in number ; so Anse's sayings were enjoyed quite as much 
by the fathers as by the boys. 

A hurrah exclamation invariably went up from the 
little red shoeshop by the roadside whenever Anse was 
seen coming up the road, for the boys well knew that with 
Anse it would be " the best three in five " at a game of 
high, low, jack. With Anse it was always high, low, jack. 
Progressive euchre and all the later and more fashionable 
games with cards had no attraction for him. There was a 
lurking charm to Anse in catching the jack, and he well 
understood how to do it. 

Anse was seldom beaten at his favorite game, and yet 
occasionally he met his "Waterloo." At one time in 
playing high, low, jack with David Norton, — who will be 
remembered as a district No. 4 boy, — Dave begged on 



EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 213 

Anse's deal ; Anse gave him, and when the cards had been 
played it was found that Dave had made high, low, jack, 
gift, game, when there went up from the lookers-on such 
shouts of laughter that Anse for the moment did n't quite 
know " where he was at ; " but he soon saw how absolutely 
absurd and ridiculous it was that the entire five points 
should have been made on his gift, so rubbing his hands 
and saying " Golly ! " he in the best of nature outlaughed 
them all. By the way, " Golly ! " was Anse's swear word, 
and it always did me good to hear him say it. 

Now, I am aware that there are those, good men and 
true, in Candia, who will not see the joke in Anse and 
Dave's remarkable 'game of high-low, for — true to that 
earlier instruction given by the Church on the Hill and by 
the village church, and also true to those earlier home les- 
sons taught the children that card-playing was the devil's 
own game — they have never learned to play "kerds," so 
they cannot be expected to see " where the laugh comes 
in." But the boys who were so wickedly (?) disobedient 
to both church and home, and so learned to play cards on 
the haymow out in the old barn and in other out-of-the- 
way places, readily understood that five points in high- 
low, ought not to be made on a gift from the dealer. What 
changes the years have brought with their coming, and 
for the better ! In these more sensible days his satanic 
majesty is not allowed to gobble up and enjoy all the in- 
nocent pleasurable enjoyments in life, and so compel us 
men, women, and children to consider it first of all our 
bounden duty to do just that which we dislike to do. 

After so long a time we have learned that the devil has 
been allowed heretofore to have his pick while we have 
been left to take " Hobson's choice." The children now, 



214 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

thank God, are no longer being robbed of tbeir rights in 
the world of amusements. 

But I have digressed a bit. I do so love to preach a 
little sermon between the lines, that it is exceedingly dif- 
ficult for me to resist the temptation, so now and then I 
switch off and occasionally get side-tracked, but not so 
much so that I am not able to get back again on the main 
line. Yes, Anse enjoyed a game of cards as few others did. 
He never forgot the trump card, neither was he ever at a 
loss in determining just how to lead. I verily believe he 
would cut short his " Now I lay me down to sleep " for a 
game of high, low, jack. And yet Anse had his thoughtful 
moods. A comrade of his in the War of the Rebellion said 
to me recently that Ansel Emerson would frequently be- 
take himself when in camp to the grove, it might be, or 
to some spot a little apart from his companions-in-arms, 
that he might there, all undisturbed, live over again the 
dear old home life. No one enjoyed home with its many 
comforts more than he. His wife and his children were 
to him his world, so that in going to the war he made the 
greatest possible test to and for his love of country. Anse 
literally gave his life to his country. He never saw a well 
day after his return from the war, and finally died from 
the hardships he suffered in battle and along the weari- 
some, cruel march. 

And how manfully and bravely he met death ! The 
" King of terrors " had no terrors for him. It was only a 
little while previous to his death that he said to his aunt, 
Mrs. Abraham Emerson, who was caring for him, " Aunt 
Nabbie, you are worn and tired, so please go to bed and 
get some rest," then adding in his characteristic way, " I 
shall not kick the bucket before morning." In this word 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 215 

of assurance to his aunt, I have no idea that Anse desired 
to treat death in a light or defiant way. His was simply 
the emphasized expression of a man who was not afraid 
to die. He had already died a thousand possible deaths 
upon the battlefield, so why fear the " grim messenger " 
when it came to him in the quiet of his home, surrounded 
by the friends who loved him best ? 

Ajise could look the inevitable in the face and not in 
the leastwise quail. He was possessed of a mind way 
above the average of his kind. Had he had the training 
of our higher institutions of learning, and entered any 
one of the so-called learned professions, he would have 
proven himself a leader in professional life. 

Anse had that remarkable power which sizes up its man 
at once. The bunco steer er would have had a difficult 
job in any attempt he might have made in unloading his 
" green goods " on him. In many ways Anse was unlike 
the majority of boys in his neighborhood. He kept a level 
head whatever the surroundings. So far as I remember, 
he never became unduly excited in any of those periodic 
religious revivals that in former times more or less fre- 
quently invaded Candia, and never did he " rise for pray- 
ers" while others were making their way to the altar. 
Anse reasoned well. He knew to his own satisfaction that 
the individual life must stand or fall as adjudged by the 
Golden Rule, and so it was that he ever held himself 
ready to do unto others as he would have others do unto 
him. 

In a way, Anse was a genius. He expressed himself as 
few others did. He saw the humorous side of things, and 
never was he known to miss a laugh. He would often- 
times intuitively arrive at conclusions which were logi- 



216 KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

cally right, while others, after a long process of reasoning, 
would find they had arrived nowhere. Always compan- 
ionable and cheery, it was invariably a delight to see Anse 
coming up the road. 



XXXVII 

Here I am at " good old Dartmouth " again, that I 
may tell the readers of these reminiscences of another 
Candia graduate of the college, the Rev. George Henry 
French of the class of 1863. Mr. French is a brother of 
the Rev. S. F. French of Londonderry, and of Dea. John 
P. French of Candia, and the youngest of the four chil- 
dren of the late Dea. Coffin M. French. George Henry, 
and I am not going to beg his pardon for calling him by 
the name most familiar to all Candia, was a pupil in the 
Candia High School under the instruction of Mr. Ray, 
and Samuel Sargent. He pursued his preparatory studies 
at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., graduating there 
in the summer of 1859, and immediately thereafter he 
entered Dartmouth College, where, through his collegiate 
course, he maintained an excellent standing in scholar- 
ship. George Henry, as did his brother S. F. French, and 
as did all the Candia boys, made his own way through 
Dartmouth. He taught school during the college winter 
vacation, and during the summer recess he assisted his 
father in the hayfield. He taught one term of the Candia 
High School. Upon graduating from the college he be- 
came principal of Thetford Academy, Thetford, Vt., which 
position he filled for two years, in which time the acad- 
emy increased its attendance. During the war he was for 
some little time actively interested on the Christian com- 
mission, with headquarters at or near Richmond, Va. 



218 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Mr. French studied theology at Andover Theological 
Seminary, graduating in 1868. He has had pastorates in 
Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. At John- 
son, Yt., Mr. French during his pastorate was much inter- 
ested in its normal school, and brought to it essential 
encouragement and aid. During Mr. French's ministry 
in Meriden, N. H., he became especially interested in 
Kimball Union Academy. He rendered important services 
in the erection of the new academy building, and the con- 
venient spacious boarding house. In the building of Dex- 
ter Richards Hall, Mr. French had largely the respon- 
sibility put upon him of seeing that the plans of that 
beautiful and commodious building were faithfully exe- 
cuted. To this building he gave much of his thought and 
time, and he has every reason for taking a personal pride, 
that the privilege was his to do so much for Kimball 
Union Academy, in so substantial a way. Mr. French is 
and has been for some years an important and helpful 
member of the board of trustees of Kimball Union 
Academy. 

It is clearly evident that Mr. French is deeply and ac- 
tively interested in all that belongs to the educational 
world. He has three stalwart boys, and all graduates of 
Dartmouth. All honor, say I, and so say all of us, that 
the Rev. George Henry French believes in children, and 
that he withholds from them no advantage to be gained 
in the schools. 

It will be seen that Mr. French has had and is still 
having a busy life. As a clergyman he has met with the 
most gratifying success. I have been much interested in 
reading a historical discourse upon the occasion of the fif- 
tieth anniversary of the evangelical Congregational church 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 219 

in Charlestown, N. H., preached by the Rev. George Henry 
French. The sermon was published by request. The text 
of the sermon is the following : " The Lord preserveth all 
them that love him." I reproduce the opening paragraph 
of Mr. French's excellent discourse. It is after this wise : 
" The psalmist had reached a point where he could unre- 
servedly testify to God's merciful care. He was now fully 
persuaded of His excellent goodness all along, even if it 
was not clearly manifest at the time. There was a Provi- 
dence over him to which he owed much, and which he had 
come to believe was inseparably connected with a good 
man's life. Pursued by enemies and tried with affliction, 
the psalmist had been driven to earnest prayer. His con- 
fident hope of relief encouraged his pouring out his com- 
plaint, in all earnestness, in petitions prompted by his 
deep anguish. The darkness and mental struggle through 
which he was long passing, had at length an end, and he 
burst forth in ejaculations of unmingled praise and thanks- 
giving, without one complaint or petition, and it proved 
true with him as with so many others, that those much in 
prayer, discover abundant occasion for praise." The en- 
tire sermon is a tribute of thanksgiving and praise for 
the growth and prosperity of the church to which Mr. 
French at that time ministered. I should have mentioned 
before this the beautiful souvenir of Kimball Union Acad- 
emy compiled by Mr. French. 

The souvenir is in the form of a book containing the 
exercises at the dedication of the new academy building 
and Dexter Richards Hall. Yes, George Henry French 
has been doing all these years and he is still at it. In 
the full vigor of his mature life, he has no idea of letting 
go his hold in a world of ceaseless activities. 



220 KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. French two summers 
ago in Candia, when I found he was still possessed of 
much of his earlier life. George Henry French enjoys a 
good laugh, and appreciates a joke that has a point ; and 
all this, I am sure, he inherits from his father, for no man 
enjoyed a laugh and a joke more thoroughly than did the 
late Deacon Coffin M. French, and right here I must so 
far digress as to sandwich in a story or two. It was on 
one of those icy mornings that they have more or less 
frequently in Candia during the winter time, that my 
brother Alfred was attempting to make his way safely 
along the road, when, in the twinkling of an eye, down he 
went full length on the treacherous ice. Just at that mo- 
ment Deacon French came along. Seeing my brother's 
somewhat ridiculous predicament, the Deacon said, " Mr. 
Palmer, the wicked stand on slippery places," to which 
my brother immediately replied, " Yes, I know it, but you 
see, deacon, I can't stand while you are safely on your 
feet." Deacon French recognized at once that the joke 
was on him, but he enjoyed it none the less. 

It was when the class of 1860 graduated at Dartmouth 
that Deacon French made his way to Hanover, N. H., to 
see his son, the Rev. S. F. French, receive his diploma. 
Upon his return home, he met the late Captain William 
R. Patten at Candia depot. Bill, I love to say " Bill," 
who was then a junior at Dartmouth, was for the moment 
holding a pet dog in his lap as the deacon stepped from 
the train. Approaching Bill, the deacon said, after greet- 
ing William, " I see you have a classmate of yours in 
your lap," " Oh no," Bill replied, " this dog has just grad- 
uated in Frank's class," and then he facetiously added, 
" and he stood well up among the first third of his class." 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 221 

The joke was not always on Deacon Coffin M. French. 
The above two instances I have mentioned to show that 
the late Deacon French could take a joke in the same 
good natured spirit as he gave one. I seem to hear his 
hearty laugh at this writing as I used to hear it in the 
long ago. Well, as I have already said, I am sure that 
the Rev. George Henry French partakes of the fun-loving 
humor of his father, and although a minister, he is not 
afraid to laugh and to laugh heartily. And this same is 
largely true of Deacon John P. French and the Rev. S. 
F. French. 

" One mch of joy surmounts of grief a span, 
Because to laugh is proper to the man." 

George Henry French, in common with other Candia 
boys, whose homes are more or less remote from the good 
old town, loves with a sincere affection the town of his 
birth. He was an important factor in effecting the home 
association of the town, the object of which is to bring 
annually every living child of Candia home to the pater- 
nal hearth-stone. 

" And hie him home at evening's close 
To sweet repast and calm repose," 

is the burden of the song of not only George Henry 
French, but of every absent son and daughter of Charm- 
ingfare. 



XXXVIII 

Thomas Benton Turner of Candia bears the most dis- 
tinguished name of them all. His patronymic, if I may so 
call him, was United States Senator from Missouri, from 
1821 to 1851, and a representative in Congress from 1853 
to 1855. Benton's " Thirty Years' View," and his 
" Abridgment of the Debates of Congress " from 1789 
to 1856 (fifteen volumes) has become the standard con- 
gressional literature of the country. 

President Roosevelt's history of the public life of Ben- 
ton places him among the foremost statesmen of his day. 
And besides all this, Benton was distinguished in being 
the father of a daughter who had the courage and pluck 
to marry the man she loved " in spite of the old folks," 
and so did not hesitate to run away with her lover, J. C. 
Fremont, to have the nuptial knot tied good and strong. 
All honor to the brave woman who forsook all else to 
marry the man she loved. Well, " Bent Turner," as they 
all know him in Candia, brings credit to the illustrious 
name he bears, for in the first place he has ever been 
true to the political faith of that greatest of American 
statesmen, Thomas H. Benton, and in the second place he 
has led an industrious life and made a success of it. 

Benton Turner had no farm left him, not even a dollar, 
and so it was that he went to work with a will, and made 
his own way. That man who climbs to the topmost round 
of the ladder without a single boost, is to be especially 




REV. GEORGE HENRY FRENCH 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 223 

commended. It is a good deal true that he helps himself 
best who helps himself through his unaided efforts. Ben- 
ton Turner hasn't a dollar that he did not earn, so that 
the competency he now possesses is all his own, through a 
rightful ownership. A man of pleasing address, he has 
made friends on all sides, friends who have brought to 
him public position and favor. For four years Candia 
made him her town treasurer, in which office Mr. Turner 
was as faithful to the public trust imposed upon him, 
as he ever has been to his own private affairs. 

For two years he represented his town in the state 
legislature. While a member of the New Hampshire 
house of representatives, he was placed upon several im- 
portant committees, where he well served both his constitu- 
ency and the state. Mr. Turner is a prominent member 
of the brotherhood of Odd Fellows, of which fraternal 
association he is a past grand. Born in Candia, and edu- 
cated in her schools, his every interest is and ever has 
been in the town which gave him birth. Eminently social 
in his nature, he happily meets men and women every- 
where. Some years my junior, so I never had the pleasure 
of being in school with Mr. Turner. The truth is, if it 
must be told, I seldom find one who is as old as I am; 
nearly all are my juniors. The years will crowd on, how- 
ever much I may attempt to push them back. 

I have learned, however, through those who know, that 
Benton Turner was a bright pupil in school, and seldom 
or never was kept after school to learn his lesson. Indeed, 
he was a boy into whose head the teacher was not com- 
pelled to shoot an idea. He caught on to the thought 
quickly, and then he held on, and he is still holding on to 
whatever is best in that greater school found in the big, 



224 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

active, bustling world. Bent Turner is one of Candia's 
foremost citizens. 

And then there is Henry Moore, and although his 
name is not "Thomas Benton," still he is a democrat 
in every fibre of his make-up. Democracy pure and sim- 
ple was bequeathed him by his father, the late John 
Moore, that most affable of men, of the Jeffersonian 
school of politics. He never hesitated to give a reason for 
the political faith that was born and bred in the bone. 
And no man could state his political creed better than 
Squire Moore. It was always a delight to hear him in 
town meeting, or in any other public assembly. 

I remember hearing Squire Moore, on one occasion, 
introduce the late Hon. Levi Woodbury at a political 
meeting in Candia. His introduction of the distinguished 
speaker was most gracefully spoken, and as I remember, 
it was an interesting feature of the hour. Well, Henry 
Moore is " a chip of the old block." With much of the 
grace and ease of his father, it is a real pleasure to meet 
him. I do not forget how ready in anecdote and reminis- 
cence he was during that ride he gave me up High Street, 
and along the North Road on that ideal August day 
last summer. He was just filled to the brim with the 
pleasantest remembrances of his father's time. He re- 
freshed my memory with many an incident of that earlier 
day. I take especial delight in recalling that ride on that 
day of days of all the summer time, now that the winter 
time is on with the glass in varying and uncertain moods. 

Henry Moore is a most agreeable man, and invariably 
bubbling over with the best of nature. His " Good morn- 
ing" and "How do you do," and "I am glad to see you," 
always to me make up a hearty welcome to Candia. He 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 225 

has the happy faculty of saying the pleasantest things in 
the pleasantest way, so that one goes out from his presence 
feeling that life after all that is said and done is well 
worth living. 

As sheriff for these many years, Mr. Moore has proved 
himself a most efficient officer of the law. Throus^h his 
wise and commendable efforts more than one quarrel has 
been amicably settled outside of the courts, and at the 
same time the law has been vindicated. Mr. Moore 
believes in bringing "peace instead of a sword," when 
this can be done, and the ends of justice met. 

I am not sure that Mr. Moore has ever represented 
Candia in the state legislature. If not, so much the 
worse for Candia. And yet, it is not the greatest thing in 
the world to become a member of the legislature. And 
right here I must tell a story which I have told over and 
over again, but be it remembered that it in no way is to 
cast reflection upon those Candia ex-representatives, who 
have so well filled this representative office. The story is 
this: It is told how a man by the name of Doe, had at 
one time so serious a brain difficulty, that the family 
physician was called. The doctor after a thorough diag- 
nosis of the case, said to Mr. Doe, "You must take 
to your bed, that I may perform an operation on your 
brain." But Mr. Doe was an exceedingly busy man, 
so much so that he could not spare the time for the pro- 
posed operation, so he suggested to the doctor that he 
take the brains out of his cranium, carry them home and 
fix them up. Meanwhile he could keep on with his work. 
The doctor did as his patient advised, and in a little time 
had Mr. Doe's brains in their normal condition ; so he, 
without any undue delay, sent word to Mr. Doe that his 



226 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

brains were as good as new, and he could have them 
by calling. Mr. Doe at once sent back word to the doc- 
tor, " Never mind, do what you will with my brains, — I 
shall not need them again, for since you took them home, 
I have been elected to the legislature." So Mr. Moore 
need not think it ill luck if he has not been sent to the 
legislature, for there is many a stay-at-home who is quite 
the equal, and in many instances the superior, of the man 
who receives the majority vote. Later I have learned that 
Mr. Moore has represented his town in the state legis- 
lature. 

Mr. Moore has had a busy life. For several years 
he was in business in Manchester. 

Now at his pleasant home at Candia Corner, he right- 
fully enjoys his attractive surroundings. His latchstring 
is always out, so that he who pulls it, may be sure of the 
"Come in." 



XXXIX 

It was in the autumn of 1852 that Addison Mead, son 
of the late Jacob Mead, of whom I have written in a pre- 
ceding letter, was a member of the high school on the 
hill. " Add," as we all called him, was a boy of marked 
individuality. He had his own thoughts, and expressed 
them in his own original way. 

I remember that it was on one of those golden October 
days that Add had one of those throbbing, jumping tooth- 
aches, that robs life of its charm, and at times, even 
welcomes death ; for of all aches in the world, there is not 
one of them that will so upset a man, woman, or child as 
the toothache. That sin is to be forgiven right on the 
spot, even before the asking, which is committed under 
the twinsres of this worst and most vexatious of all aches. 
Well, Add had the toothache on the day to which I refer, 
at its worst, so in the frenzy of his utter desperation 
he said to me, " Wils, I want you to go down to Doctor 
Page's with me this noon hour, and hold my head, while 
the doctor pulls this aching, pulsating tooth." I accord- 
ingly went, but I did not hold Add's head, for it so hap- 
pened that the late Alfred Dana Fitts was in the doctor's 
office, and he kindly, and much to my relief, performed 
that part in the tragical operation which had been at first 
assigned to me, so I had nothing to do other than to look 
on, and in an audible way express my sympathy for poor 
Add. Dr. Page, with his turning hook safely wound with 



228 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

a towel, made two unsuccessful tugs at the tooth, but all 
the same it did n't come. Add meanwhile groaning in the 
most piteous way. At that time it was customary when 
one died to strike the age of the deceased on the meeting- 
house bell, so as the doctor was about to make the third 
attack on the tooth, Add cried out, " Hold wp for a moment, 
doctor, before you give another pull, and send some one up 
to the meeting house to strike my age on the bell," and 
then he added, " I am eighteen years old." True to all 
history, the doctor on the third trial brought out the 
great, big, ugly tooth which had kept Add on the swear- 
ing point for the two days previous. 

With a keen perception. Add unquestionably recognized 
how absolutely ridiculous and cruel, that such a threaten- 
ing instrument of death as that old formidable turning 
hook should be used in what is now so simple an opera- 
tion as extracting a tooth. No wonder that Add had in 
mind the graveyard as he was being nearly yanked out 
of his chair. But then, in those days of blistering and 
bleeding and other manifold ways of bodily torture, twist- 
ing out a tooth by main force was in keeping with the 
system of doing things in the medical world. But now a 
more sensible condition of things exists in the practice of 
medicine. 

Why, in these days it is hardly less than a pleasure to 
have a tooth extracted. Now, comfortably seated in the 
dentist's chair, under the influence of some soothing opiate, 
one may go to sleep and dream of all the untold glories 
of heaven, and upon awaking find his aching tooth on 
the dentist's sideboard. What marvelous and fortunate 
changes have been wrought in this great, big world of 
ours within the last half century ! 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 229 

Fifty or more years ago, the practice in every depart- 
ment of labor and professional life the world over was 
made to fit that cruel and senseless theology which was 
based upon nothing other than a malicious persecution 
of the body. The moment our theology softened, and it 
came to be recognized that God is not a heartless tyrant, 
but a loving father who careth for his children, then there 
came that intelligence which has so wonderfully modified 
our way of doing things in every work and calling under 
the sun. No longer does the doctor " pull teeth," but he 
extracts them without pain. No longer does the doctor 
" bleed " and " blister," but he soothes and helps nature to 
hold her own. Now the poor boy may have water to drink 
when he is spotted all over with measles, and burning 
with fever. We are living under a new dispensation, where 
reason and common sense sit enthroned — and all reason 
and common sense, be it remembered, find their source in 
Omniscience. Well, Add survived the "pulling," and 
went back to school with tliat " horrid tooth "in his pocket. 
It was this same Addison Mead who, with Sam Beane in 
Candia, but the Rev. S. C. Beane, D. D., elsewhere, and 
myself, made his way to Blanchard Academy in Pembroke, 
on a day late in November, starting from the hill school- 
house after the morning recitation, and returning in 
season for the Wednesday evening lyceum, held in the 
vestry of the Church on the Hill. 

Yes, we three happy schoolboys footed it all the way 
to and from Pembroke Academy, and this, too, on one of 
the shortest days of the year, and returned in season to 
take part in the lyceum, in discussing the question, " That 
the extension of slavery is preferable to the dissolution of 
the Union." I am aware that I have told this story some- 



230 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

where before, but it bears repeating. Sam and Add and 
I made over twenty-five miles good and strong on that 
brief November day, without a taste of food, save what we 
had in our dinner pails as we started from home. And oh, 
how hungry we were as we approached Rowe's Corner on 
our way home ! So hungry that Add stole into an orchard, 
and, climbing a tree, pocketed some frozen apples, which 
we devoured as a " sweet morsel." The only money we 
had with us was one penny, and Sam Beane had that. I 
do not remember whether or not it had Caesar's super- 
scription upon it ; but so far as I was concerned, I well 
remember that mother's pantry had a less show of pump- 
kin pies the next morning than it had on the evening of 
my return home from that day off on the road to and from 
Pembroke ; and I have no doubt that Sam and Add made 
havoc with their mother's best pies baked on purpose for 
company. 

During my recent visit with Sam Beane at his pleasant 
home in Newburyport, he facetiously asked me if I re- 
membered that walk of the long ago. 

Addison Mead was the humorist of that trio, on that 
never-to-be-forgotten tramp, while Sam was a close second. 
I don't remember that I did much other along the way 
than to applaud the bright, witty sayings of my two travel- 
ing schoolboy companions. 

Add always took an especial delight in " speaking his 
piece " on the platform. I recall with a good deal of vivid- 
ness his enthusiastic gesticulations, and his still more 
enthusiastic voice. Add never allowed a difficult or uncer- 
tain pronunciation of a word to bother him. He sailed 
right through his " piece " in spite of the authorities. 

I shall never forget how in a selection he declaimed 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 231 

when in the high school in which the phrase, " The Doge 
of Venice " occurred, he, with emphasis, exclaimed " The 
dog of Venice," and then went on as though nothing un- 
usual had happened. How we all remember the laughable 
slips of tongue made by others, while we forget those we 
make ourselves ! 

It is but recently that I learned of the death of Addison 
Mead, whose decease occurred somewhere within the past 
two years at his home in New York state. His pronounced 
individuality read in italics. To know him was to remem- 
ber him. 

He represented the positive side of the equation in 
life. The unknown quantity with Addison Mead was 
bound to find its value on the plus side. Its value may 
not always have been exact, but it was always plus. 



XL 



I 'll venture there is not a Candia boy or girl of fifty 
years ago who does not recall the pleasant, sunny face of 
the late Captain Joseph Hubbard. His genial presence 
was both a greeting and a benediction. 

I can see him now, as I saw him years ago, as he made 
his way of a Sunday morning to his pew in the Church on 
the Hill. Captain Hubbard had an easy and graceful step, 
coming in part, undoubtedly, from his military experience. 
The Captain was born February 14, 1817, and died Oc- 
tober 13, 1900, at the age of nearly 84 years. For a num- 
ber of years he was one of the selectmen of Candia, and 
for several years their chairman. 

In this official position he proved himself a valuable 
public servant, having always in view the best interests of 
the town. He at one time represented his town in the 
state legislature, and while a member of that honorable 
body he was accounted among the first of legislators of 
the state. 

He was appointed captain of the Second Company of 
Light Infantry by the late Governor Page in 1842, and a 
little later on he was appointed colonel of the 17th Regi- 
ment. This latter appointment he did not accept. Cap- 
tain Hubbard had about him that graceful military air 
which gave him the right to command. It was with the 
enthusiastic admiration of a boy that I used to watch him 
in those old training days, as he with measured step 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 233 

marched his company up and down the muster field. I 
seem to hear now his " Ready, aim, fire," and his " Recover 
arms," as though it were but yesterday. Those annual 
musters of the militia years ago were the event of the 
autumn time with the boys as well as with the older grown. 

At the first streakings of the dawn one could hear the 
glad shout and hurrah of the foot soldier and the infantry 
on their way to the field. And that martial music ! Was 
there ever a war note so brimful of inspiration to us boys ! 
The fife and snare drum were to me in those days the very 
battle-cry of freedom. 

How delightful it was to stand and watch and watch 
with eager eye the several companies as they marched 
along with stately tread, keeping perfect step to the beat 
and rhythm of the music ! Those glorious old muster days ! 
We all, both old and young, were there to take in the 
suggestive lesson of those annual trainings. It was, how- 
ever, the Second Company of Light Infantry that afforded 
me the greatest pleasure. Those spotless white trousers 
finished below the knee in black velvet, formed a pleasing 
picture by way of contrast. To me, the snowy white with 
the black of night was a consummation of the highest art. 
And then the " troopers," uniformed in the gayest of col- 
ors, lent to the field the tints of the rainbow. 

But the Light Infantry ! How all those feet in black 
leggings did show themselves* in harmonious step ! How 
those feet revealed themselves at the same identical mo- 
ment a little to the rear, and then again how uniformly 
they advanced ! One might have well sworn that those 
feet and legs all belonged to one man, so in unison were 
they with the stirring music of the day. I see them now 
as then. 



234 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

But above all and before all else, I see even now Cap- 
tain Joseph Hubbard, his face radiant with the pride he 
ever had in his command. The Captain was every inch a 
soldier, and especially attractive and taking in his martial 
appearance. His soldier boys were fond of him, and so 
" they heard his voice and followed him." Captain Hub- 
bard had that rare faculty of winning to himself. He got 
near to his men through his great loving heart, which beat 
in sympathy with the .heart of his fellow-men. It is for- 
ever true that Love is the major-general in every field of 
successful action. 

Captain Joseph Hubbard was a prominent and pleasing 
figure in those field musters of a half-century ago. For 
years in the early forties the Captain, with his brother, 
Elias P., was engaged during the winter season in making 
fish barrels, finding a market for them in Newburyport, 
Mass. Many and many a time had Captain Hubbard taken 
his barrels to Newburyport with an ox-team. Later on, 
he and his brother ferried them to Newburjrport on the 
Merrimack river, running through the locks at Man- 
chester. 

For some years the Captain was in the wood and timber 
business. It is said that his judgment on wood, timber, and 
cattle was unsurpassed. In fact, his judgment was con- 
sidered excellent in any and all matters with which he had 
to do. Many sought his counsel and advice. 

Captain Hubbard understood how to farm it so as to 
make it pay. The fact is, everything paid which he did, 
for all his work was intelligently and faithfully wrought. 
The duty nearest at hand was the duty with which he 
grappled. He did n't wait for something to turn up. 

Captain Joseph Hubbard was one of the leading citi- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 235 

zens of Candia, aud as such he was respected and loved by 
all who knew him. 

A man rich in anecdote, he never failed to entertain his 
friends. " Now for a story," was the cry when Captain 
Hubbard put in his appearance, and the story was always 
sure to have its lesson, and besides all this he had a pleas- 
ing way in all narrative. To lie with him under the grate- 
ful shade of his favorite apple tree on a summer day, and 
listen to his conversation when he was in a reminiscent 
mood, was to live over again many a happy day of years 
gone by. 

Captain Hubbard had a big, loving heart. His attach- 
ment to friends was ardent and abiding. During the 
last years of his life, when the world was shut out to 
him through a grievous blindness, he came nearer yet to 
those he loved. He confided in them and gave himself 
to them. 

Though bereft of sight, still the sunshine was all about 
him. In those last days he especially lived in an atmo- 
sphere where the skies were the clearest, and where the 
rainbow gave out its most brilliant colors. It is the testi- 
mony of one of his dearest friends, that during all his 
blindness he was the genial, companionable man who made 
everybody happy who came into his presence. In that 
material blindness that came to him he saw with still 
clearer vision the immaterial. The attributes of heart 
and soul and mind in those last days were revealed to 
him in a perspective way. He now looked upon all sides, 
so that he saw that higher and truer relationship which 
should exist between mind and mind and heart and heart. 

No wonder that the many friends of Captain Hubbard 
loved him ; and the secret of it all was that he loved them 



236 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

and was glad to make that love known. He drew to him- 
self by that magnetism of good fellowsjiip which is both 
royal and loyal at all times and everywhere. 

A man among men, Captain Joseph Hubbard ever held 
himself in glad readiness to give the best he had. 



XLI 

Thirty-five or forty years ago there might have been 
seen, as regularly as the summer morning came, a boy of 
infant age with his dinner-pail well filled, trudging along 
the cross-road in my neighborhood, making his way to the 
little unpretentious schoolhouse in district No. 4, where 
his first lessons were learned. 

It must have been that the bright lad whom I have in 
mind oftentimes delayed his steps that he might gaze with 
youthful enthusiasm on the Uncanoonuc Mountains, of 
which he writes so pleasantly and so suggestively in his 
" Back Country Poems." The boyhood of Sam Walter 
Foss is so well known in Candia that I need not long 
dwell upon it. I well remember that during my brief 
vacations at home from the academy and the college I often 
asked, " Who is this Sam Walter Foss of whom I hear so 
much ? " And the answer always came, " He is one of the 
brightest boys in our neighborhood and in our district 
school," " one who never has to learn his lesson over again, 
but understands it all from beginning to end by one 
reading." 

Mr. Foss, at his birth, rightfully came into an in- 
heritance of that keen wit and ability which have so dis- 
tinguished him in the world of intellect ; for his father 
and mother and his grandparents on both sides of the 
house were possessed of much more than average mental 
force. His Grandfather Hardy and his Grandfather Foss 



238 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

were men of the readiest wit, so Sam Walter Foss came 
into the world with a good intellectual bank account on 
which to draw. That he has made good use of whatever 
has come to him by descent, his life in all literary effort 
has abundantly proved. 

Mr. Foss fitted for college in the high school at Ports- 
mouth, graduating therefrom in 1877, and subsequently 
he was one year a student at the academy in Tilton. He 
entered Brown University (Providence, R. I.) in 1878, 
graduating in 1882. He was the poet of his class at the 
time of his graduation, one of the highest honors of the 
college. 

Both in the academy and in the college Mr. Foss showed 
in an unmistakable way the stuff of which he was made. 
With " no silver spoon in his mouth," he made his way 
through the schools, determined to get the best and the 
most out of them. 

While Brown University did much for Mr. Foss, the 
city of Providence did more, for she gave him one of her 
most capable and amiable daughters for his wife. Mrs. 
Foss has ever been and is a constant encouragement and 
aid to her husband in all his literary work. 

Immediately following his graduation from the college, 
Mr. Foss became editor of the Lynn (Mass.) Saturday 
" Union," which position he filled for five years. His work 
upon this paper was so successful that he was called to the 
editorial chair of the " Yankee Blade," published in Bos- 
ton, in the management of which he remained six years. 
It was while connected with the " Yankee Blade " that 
Mr. Foss made himself known as one of the brightest 
.humorists. 

At one time Mr. Foss was an editorial writer on the 




SAM WALTER FOSS 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 239 

Boston " Globe," and during all his editorial life he con- 
tributed to nearly all the humorous papers, and in addition 
to all this, he did much syndicate work, writing for the 
New York *' Sun," " Tribune," " Herald," and other 
papers of the great city. 

Sam Walter Foss, however, has become more widely 
known through his " Back Country Poems." Of these he 
has published four volumes, and they are not only to be 
found in nearly all the public libraries of New England, 
but in nearly every public library throughout the land. 
Not only this, for they are read across the waters. These 
poems are redolent with the country and its rural life. A 
lover of the open field and wood, and of " the old farm," 
Mr. Foss could but sing his sweet, rustic song under the 
inspiration of his picturesque surroundings. 

To him there is a charm in country life, nowhere else 
to be found ; he revels under the shadow of the moun- 
tains and beside the murmuring brook. The countryman 
is his brother. Mr. Foss delights to recognize " the man 
with a hoe," and the man in his shirt-sleeves. His " Hullo " 
is the informal and cordial greeting of a born democrat. 
Listen for a moment to his glad salutation : — 

" Wen you see a man in woe, 
Walk right up and say ' Hullo ! * 
Say ' Hullo,' an' ' How d' ye do ! ' 
* How 's the world a-usin' you ? ' 
Slap the fellow on his back, 
Bring your han' down with a whack; 
Waltz right up an' don't go slow, 
Grin an' shake an' say ' Hullo ! ' 

*' Is he clothed in rags ? O sho ! 
Walk right up an' say ' Hullo ! * 



240 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Rags is but a cotton roll 
Jest fer wrappin' up a soul ; 
An' a soul is worth a true 
Hale an' hearty ' How d' ye do ! ' 
Don't wait for the crowd to go, 
Walk right up and say ' Hullo ! ' 

" Wen big vessels meet, they say, 
They salute an' sail away. 
Jest the same are you an' me, 
Lonesome ships upon a sea ; 
Each one sailing his own jog 
For a port beyond the fog. 
Let your speakin' trumpet blow, 
Lift your horn an' cry ' Hullo ! ' 

« Say ' Hullo,' an' ' How d'ye do! ' 
Other folks are good as you. 
Wen you leave your house of clay, 
Wanderin' in the Far-Away, 
Wen you travel through the strange 
Country t' other side the range. 
Then the souls you 've cheered will know 
Who you be, an' say ' Hullo ! ' " 

The above humorous verse is a whole sermon in itself, 
and largely smacks of a practical Christianity. Mr. Foss, 
when he wrote the lines I have quoted, must have had in 
mind the Golden Rule, together with a pleasant thought 
of the Sermon on the Mount. Sam Walter Foss is es- 
pecially happy in his way of meeting men and women, 
and herein lie his most distinguished characteristics. He 
wears no fringes or red-tape. He is just as God made him, 
with all the fragrance and delightful atmosphere of the 
country about him. He has made man and nature his 
study, and in studying both he has listened to himself. In 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 241 

his " Songs of War and Peace," he writes as follows, 
under the heading " Listen to Yourself." 

** Ah, teacher, let me hear you teach; 
You have brave words from Olden Seers, 
The lore of those long-bearded men 
Of all the far-off years ; 
The gray old thoughts of gray old men 
Beneath the Asian stars, 
Brought safe by fate through clashing years 
Of unremembered wars. 
And you have read the huddled tomes 
Of many an alcoved shelf; 
But have you stood beneath the stars 
And listened to yourself ? 
Ah, teacher, let me hear you teach; 
You at Old Sage's feet have sat; 
Know you the man within your coat, 
The man beneath your hat ? 
You know the thoughts that shaped the world 
From far-off centuries blown ; 
What says the man who talks with thee 
When thou art all alone ? 
Why should I listen to a man 
Who listens at the alcoved shelf ? 
Man, let me hear the living man 
Who listens to himself." 

Mr. Foss sang with Pope in the above lines : — 

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 
The proper study of mankind is man." 

Sam Walter Foss had listened to himself, and so heard 
the voice within, summoning him to that world of cease- 
less activities and ever-varying beauty of which now he 
so happily sings. 

In that gem of a poem entitled " The Uncanoonuc 



242 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Mountains," Mr. Foss has j)ictured himself gazing, as he 
often did in rapturous delight, on that unsurpassed west- 
ern view which he had so often taken in on his way to the 
district school, of which view the Uncanoonuc Mountains 
formed a prominent feature of the background. There is 
no Candia boy or girl who has not time and again looked 
upon those far-away mountains, wondering all the while 
what lay beyond, so we have all joined Mr. Foss as he has 
sung ; — 

" They stood there in the distance, mysterious and lone, 
Each with a hazy vapor above its towering dome; 

They stood like barriers between the unknown and the known. 
The Uncanoonuc Mountains which I used to see from home. 

And in fancy on the thither side, it was my wont to roam ; 
1 saw the glories of the world upon the other side 

Of the Uncanoonuc Mountains which I used to see from home." 

And then Mr. Foss describes in a graphic way his im- 
aginary mountain-climbs, with all the art and sentiment 
of the poet that he is. 

" One misty mountain overpassed upon the march of time, 

Another summit breaks in view, and onward still I roam — 
Another mountain in the mist which beckons me to climb, 

Like the Uncanoonuc Mountains which I used to see from home." 

This poem alone is sufficient to establish the loving 
relationship existing between Mr. Foss and Nature, the 
mother of us all. All his " Back Country Poems " are so 
many declarations that " No tears dim the sweet look that 
Nature wears." Sam Walter Foss proclaims himself a 
lover of oliildren, and this, too, in no uncertain way, in his 
" Tellin' what the Baby Did : " — 

" Pooty hard schoolmarm is fate 
To her scholars, small an' great ; 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 243 

I hev felt upon my han' 
Tingle of her sharp rattan; 
But she pities our distress, 
An' she gives a glad recess 
When Matilda sits, half hid, 
Tellin' what the baby did. 

" Trudge off with my dinner pail, 
Every mornin' without fail ; 
Work, with hardly time for breath ; 
Come home, tired half to death ; 
But I feel a perfect rest 
Settle down upon my breast, 
Settin' by the twilight hid, 
Hearin' what the baby did." 

What a delightful, restful picture Mr. Foss paints in 
the above lines ! He recognizes that a baby in the house 
italicizes the home and lightens the burdens of life. 
" Tellin' what the Baby did " is music set to the sweetest 
note of the purest love and to that of the most ardent 
affection. This little poem of what the baby did, Mr. 
Foss must have written out of a full heart, for he has had 
several babies in his own household to lighten his cares, 
and to give a fuller and deeper meaning to his life's work. 
Oh, that there were a "Matilda" in every home, to tell 
what the baby did ! 

One of the most suggestive and instructive poems that 
Mr. Foss has written is that entitled "The Bloodless 
Sportsman." Hear what he says : — 

" I go a-gunuing, but take no gun ; 

I fish without a pole ; 
And I bag good game and catch such fish 

As suits a sportsman's soul ; 
For the choicest game that the forest holds. 

And the best fish of the brook, 



244 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Are never brought down by a rifle shot 
And never are caught with a hook. 

" I bob for fish by the forest brook, 

I hunt for game in the trees, 
For bigger birds than wing the air 

Or fish than swim the seas. 
A rodless Walton of the brooks 

A bloodless sportsman, I — ^ 
I hunt for the thoughts that throng the woods, 

The dreams that haunt the sky. 

" The woods were made for the hunters of dreams, 

The branch for the fishers of song ; 
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game 

The streams and the woods belong. 
There are thoughts that moan from the soul of the pine, 

And thoughts in a flower bell curled; 
And the thoughts that are blown with the scent of the fern 

Are as new and as old as the world. 

" So away! for the hunt in the fern-scented wood 

Till the going down of the sun; 
There is plenty of game still left in the woods 

For the hunter who has no gun. 
So away! for the fish in the moss-bordered brook 

That flows through the velvety sod; 
There are plenty of fish still left in the streams 

For the angler who has no rod." 

If every lover of the gun and the rod could read the 
above lines, I '11 venture that many an innocent deer would 
be left undisturbed in its mountain home and many a fish 
would be left to sport in the waters of brook and lake. 

In all the writings of Mr Foss there is to be .found a 
moral. Although for the most part writing in a humorous 
way, he nevertheless dips his pen in all seriousness and 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 245 

earnestness. He has a lesson to convey and he takes his 
own inimitable way in conveying it. 

The poetry that Mr. Foss has written has become so 
popular and wide-spread that a great demand is made on 
his time, in giving individual readings of what he has so 
well put into verse. He has just concluded a series of 
readings in the principal cities of Michigan. 

His readings are all the more satisfactory and taking 
from the fact that he does not attempt to elocutionize 
them. He simply recites them in the most natural way 
possible. 

In his official work as librarian of the Somerville, 
(Mass.) public library, Mr. Foss is happy among his 
books. He lives in an intellectual and literary atmo- 
sphere. 

Mr. Foss, however, is seen at his best in his pleasant 
home, 249 Highland Avenue, Somerville, Mass. To sit 
with him in his private library and enjoy with him one 
of his choice Havanas is to refresh one's memory with 
things new and old. 

Mr. Foss well knows how to tell a good story, and by 
the way, he never leaves anything out of the story, but 
tells the whole of it. 

Coming out from an humble but loving home a little 
way down the " cross road " in Candia, Sam Walter Foss 
has sung his way to the popular heart of the people, and 
he is still singing. 



XLII 

It is the most natural thing in the world that immediately 
following my story of Sam Walter Foss, I should write 
of the late J. Henry Palmer, for the two boys were the 
closest of friends throughout all their youth. 

They had their plays in common, and were interested 
in the same studies at school. Each had a peculiar fond- 
ness for the other. I am sure they were especially drawn 
each to the other through the genius of their intellect. I 
say advisedly " the genius of their intellect," for both of 
them possessed that keen mental power which took in the 
lesson at once. 

No two brighter boys ever attended the school in dis- 
trict No. 4 than Sam Walter Foss and Henry Palmer. 
There is no reason why I should beg the pardon of 
their schoolmates when 1 declare what was so well known 
at the time, that these two boys in school led all the 
rest. This fact was patent to every one, so much so that 
Sam Walter Foss and Henry Palmer in their day were 
the distinguishing features of the school in district No. 
4. The school committee of the town took an espe- 
cial pride in them, and often spoke their names in the 
most complimentary way throughout their home neigh- 
borhood. 

It was a delightful exhibition of their boyish admiration 
for each other that Sam Walter Foss would insist that 
Henry Palmer was the brightest boy he ever knew, while 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 247 

» 

Henry Palmer at the same time would as stoutly insist 
that Sam Walter Foss had no second. This much I write 
of the two in a mutual way that it may be seen how fitting 
it is that I at this time tell of Henry Palmer. Another 
reason and a more potent one why I write of him is that 
he was and is my nephew, so that I have a loving and an 
abiding interest in the memory of one of my own family 
blood whose life, all too brief, so distinguished him in his 
youth and early manhood. 

Henry Palmer came into the world with an interroga- 
tion point upon his lips. With a mind richly endowed 
and keenly alive, he was forever seeking the " why " and 
the " wherefore." The discQvery of a new truth was to 
him another evidence of its inJ&nity. 

Never satisfied until he saw the reason of things, he 
held on with a tenacious grip to whatever subject he might 
have under discussion. 

He was an omnivorous reader, so that with his retentive 
memory he was a fund of information. His extended 
reading took in our best English authors. More than 
once have I been put to my wit's end as he discussed sub- 
jects, fundamental in their bearing, of which I knew little 
or nothing. 

In all political science Henry became an authority in 
the Palmer home. He was familiar with every branch of 
our republican form of government. He particularly de- 
lighted in history, both ancient and modern, and in his 
occasional writings one can easily trace his wide historical 
research. This fact is seen in a little poem he wrote when 
hardly out of his teens, entitled " Where do the Palmers 
lodge ? " I reproduce his verse with exceeding pleasure, 
inasmuch as it reveals so unmistakably his pride in and 



248 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

love for his family name, as well as indicating his ex- 
tended range of reading. The poem is as follows : — 

" Where do the Palmers lodge ? 
Well mayest thou ask ! 
Albeit to answer were no eaSy task. 

"Tho' in these latter days no more 
In pilgrim guise they roam ; 
In every land beneath the sun 
The Palmers have their home. 

" No more their weary feet are scorched 
By Syria's burning sands; 
No more the palm-tree's faded branch 
Waves in their feeble hands. 

"No more on their defenseless heads 
The Moslem's curses fall; 
And in his prison cells, no more 
They wait death's lingering call. 

" But when in Europe's castle halls 

Was heard their mournful tale, 

Her valiant knights at once arose 

And donned their coat of mail. 

" Alike the peasant, as the prince, 
Has drawn his trusty blade; 
And forth has gone right merrily 
To join the bold crusade. 

" Ah ! who in that soul-stirring hour 
Gave heed to loved one's pain ? 
They thought each sacrifice below 
In heaven should bring them gain. 

" Fair maiden's sigh nor wife's fond tears 
Could stay their hastening feet; 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 249 

One last embrace, and then they part, 
Crying, ' Revenge is sweet ! ' 

" The scene has changed : on Judah's shore 
The Christian warriors ride, 
And Islam's host in vain has fought 
To save the Crescent's pride; 

" For o'er Jerusalem at last 

The red cross proudly waved, 
And from the unbeliever's touch 
The Holy Tomb was saved. 

" The Palmers now in safety came 
Seeking that holy shrine ; 
To worship where once stood the cross, 
Symbol of grace divine. 

" The days of chivalry are o'er. 
Its glories long have fled; 
And those who fought by Jordan's strand 
Are numbered with the dead. 

" The years roll on, old manners change, 
Old customs pass away; 
Upon the shores of Palestine 
No more the Palmers stray. 

" Yet round their name a halo bright 
Still glows, undimmed by time; 
And we who bear it should uphold 
Its fame in every clime." 

Henry Palmer, in the above poem, expressed in a sweet 
way his love and affection for the Palmer name, and the 
tribute he thus pays the Palmers will ever remain a 
peculiar source of satisfaction and pride, not only to his 
father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. T. Alfred Palmer, and 



250 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

to his brother and sister, but to every member of the 
Candia Palmer family as well. 

Never seeing a well day, yet Henry Palmer made each 
day an introduction to a newer and larger world, and to 
truths the solving of which was his constant study. 

Possessed of a pronounced individuality, he was ever 
himself. He never in the slightest way represented him- 
self other than he was, and he had the supremest contempt 
for that man whose sole aim was to be " all things unto all 
men." The political trickster invariably called forth from 
him his bitterest anathemas, and never would he forgive 
the arrant cheat either in morals or religion. His sense of 
honor was so true and vital that any departure from it 
was not readily forgiven. 

I write thus positively of Henry Palmer's distinguishing 
characteristics, because I knew him so intimately and well. 
An invalid as he was during all his short life, his circle of 
acquaintances was necessarily limited, so that he was not 
as widely known as he otherwise would have been. But 
we in the home and those in the home neighborhood well 
appreciated the fact that Henry Palmer, in spite of his 
frail, sickly body, had a mind and a soul full of bounding 
life, and all astir with those ceaseless intellectual activities 
which not only sustain mental life, but which beget it. 

Physiologically a martyr to every known law of health, 
yet his quick, intense mind overcame all physical disabili- 
ties and so reveled in the world of books. 

Henry Palmer had a sensitive appreciation of all the 
world about him. No one took in more eagerly than he 
that far western view had from his home. He loved the 
valley and the mountains and always welcomed the coming 
of bud and flower. The following sweet verse he wrote of 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 251 

the Mayflower attests his love of the floral world. lu this 
wise he sang : — 

" Sweet flower ! the fairest gift of spring; 
What joy thy tiny blossoms bring ! 
How many hopes oft turned to flee, 
Come back once more at sight of thee ! 

" When warmer suns and April showers 
The earth's bare bosom clothe with flowers, 
Thou art the first, the daintiest gem, 
In Nature's fragrant diadem. 

" And e'en the roses blooming pale 
In far-famed Cashmere's lonely vale, 
For perfume must resign the prize 
To thee, beneath our Northern skies. 

" Then bloom thou forth, as round the sun 
Each year the changing seasons run; 
Bloom forth, and be to us a sign, 
Of leaf and fruit on tree and vine." 

Henry Palmer in the above verse had caught the inspira- 
tion of the delicately beautiful, so it was that he sang in 
sweetest measure. His song to the Mayflower is fragrant 
with the new-born life of the flowers. Dying at the early 
age of twenty-six years, yet he lived a lifetime, as mea- 
sured by every law of intellectual growth. 

True to all that was best, his memory has become a rich 
inheritance to those who knew him most intimately. 

Henry Palmer met life bravely and he met death just 
as bravely. I hope he is looking on as I render him this 
affectionate tribute. Who shall say he is not? Singing 
here for a brief while, but "up there" singing forever- 
more. 



XLIII 

I QUESTION if there is a town in near neighborhood to 
Candia which has sent out into the various departments 
of business and professional life a greater number of men 
and women than has she. 

Many of those I have already given individual mention. 
At this writing I am to group some of those with whom 
I have not been able to keep so closely in touch. In 
referring to the Rev. Moses Patten, of Hooksett, in a 
previous letter, I should have made conspicuous mention 
of his published work on " Infant Baptism." It does n't 
matter whether one believes or does not believe that in- 
fant baptism is a rite enjoined by divine appointment ; he 
who reads Mr. Patten's book on the subject must necessa- 
rily admit that he discusses the question with the severest 
logic — and granting his premises, it will surel}^ follow 
that he is correct in his conclusions, for Mr. Patten is in 
no wise at fault in his argument. I have recently read 
the book with a good deal of interest, and have been im- 
pressed with the labor that must have been given it. The 
many scriptural references made and the eminent author- 
ities quoted show that Mr. Patten must have devoted the 
best years of his life to the discussion of " Infant Bap- 
tism." His studious and scholarly investigation of his 
subject has received words of the most positive commenda- 
tion from the late Prof. Edwards A. Park, Andover, Mass., 
and from G. Frederick Wright, President Cyrus Hamlin, 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 253 

Drs. Joshua W. Wellman, Daniel L. Furber, Henry J. 
Patrick, Nathan F. Carter, and many others who are 
authority in the theological world. While I have neither 
the time nor space to review, even in a small way, Mr. 
Patten's interesting and instructive work on a subject 
that has many a time gotten Christians almost literally 
by the ears, still I gladly make room to emphasize what 
I have already said, that it has afforded me a peculiar 
pleasure to read Mr. Patten's exposition on " Infant 
Baptism." Candia must be especially interested in this 
book. 

Mr. Patten has had a busy and useful life. Not only 
ambitious to obtain a liberal education for himself, but 
equally ambitious that his sister, Mrs. Pressey, of Win- 
chester, Mass., and that his brother, the late Daniel Dana 
Patten, should secure like educational advantages, he 
proved himself an essential aid and encouragement to 
them in their early school life. 

Then there is the late Rev. James P. Lane, son of the 
late Dr. Isaiah Lane, who had a successful ministry in 
several localities in Massachusetts. Mr. Lane, as I wrote 
in chapter XII, was a pupil with me in the high school 
under the instruction of Mr. Farrar. I remember that at 
the close of Mr. Farrar's term of school, James P. Lane 
and I had a joint discussion on the following question : 
Be it resolved, '' That the influence of woman in the home 
is greater than that of the clergyman in the pulpit." The 
only thing that I remember of the subject assigned us is, 
that I put in my best word for woman, which I was de- 
lighted to do then, and no less delighted to do now, after 
all these years. 

Mr. Lane graduated at Amherst College and at the 



254 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

theological seminary in Andover, Mass., in both of which 
institutions he made an excellent record. 

Another Candia clergyman who is well up in his pro- 
fession is the Rev. Stephen Emerson, son of the late Rev. 
John D. Emerson. Mr. Emerson now occupies a promi- 
nent pulpit in one of the larger cities in California. Mr. 
Emerson is a graduate of Dartmouth College and is dis- 
tinguished as a speaker. Of the medical profession, there 
is Dr. J. Wilson Robie, of New York City. Dr. Robie 
graduated at the New York Medical School, and at once 
began the practice of medicine in the great city. Dr. 
Robie became a good deal skilled in surgery. 

One of the most agreeable and amiable of young men as 
I remember him, was the late Dr. Frank Fitts, son of the 
late Joseph Fitts. Frank was a pupil of mine in the high 
school, and I recall him now as vividly as though it were but 
yesterday, as that prince of good fellows whom everybody 
loved. His face was always radiant with good nature. He 
studied his profession with the late Dr. Page and graduated 
at the medical department of Dartmouth College. In 
Francestown, where he died, he met with eminent success. 

Dr. Francis P. Emerson, the eldest son of the Hon. 
Moses F. Emerson, graduated at the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons in New York City. Dr. Emerson has a large 
practice and a pleasant home in Boston. And then there 
is his brother. Dr. William Robie Patten Emerson, a 
graduate of Dartmouth, who is one of the instructors in 
the medical school at Harvard University, which fact 
alone would distinguish him in his professional life. 

Dr. George H. French, son of Henry French, whose 
home is near Candia Depot, is one of the promising young 
physicians in Boston. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 255 

Dr. James F. Brown, with the Candia mark upon him, 
I remember as a boy when he had his home with the late 
John Brown, on what was at that time known as the Lang- 
ford road. Dr. Brown is recognized in New Hampshire 
as one of the leading physicians of the state. In Man- 
chester, where he has resided for many years, he has an 
extended practice. Dr. Brown at present is traveling in 
Europe. Another boy whose home was on the Langford 
road, is Dr. John H. Dearborn, son of the late John C. 
Dearborn. The doctor's home is in Salem, Mass., where 
he practices his profession. He is a man, I learn, who is 
familiar with all that is latest and best in the world of 
medicine. 

The late Dr. Frank D. Beane of New York City, a 
nephew of Cotton W. Beane, was a native of Candia and 
lived when a boy in the house at the foot of the hill lead- 
ing up to the Langford road, going Raymond way. I met 
with Dr. Beane but once during his life, and this chance 
meeting was under circumstances so peculiar that I must 
tell of them. 

It was somewhere in the later seventies of the 1800 
reckoning, that I was making my way just at the dusk of 
evening from Passaic, N. J. to New York. The train on 
which I was a passenger ran into some object when mid- 
way on the open bridge over the Passaic River, which gave 
my car a pronounced jar. The train came to a standstill, 
when all on board became wild with excitement, exclaim- 
ing, " The bridge is going down ! " After a few minutes' 
delay, however, the train started on its way to New York, 
with the dead body of the unfortunate flagman, who had 
been killed by a misstep, throwing him in front of the 
engine. On board of the ferryboat taking us over to the 



256 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

New York side, I fell in with a doctor who had been a 
passenger on the same train with myself and he had ex- 
amined the dead body of the poor flagman. After some 
little conversation concerning the deadly accident, our 
talk took an inquiring turn, as each of us seemed a bit 
curious to learn who the other might be. Upon asking 
my new-made acquaintance of his native state, he replied, 
" I was born in New Hampshire." " That is my state, 
too," I replied. Naturally enough, I then asked him from 
what county he hailed, when he said : " Rockingham 
County." And when finally he replied to my third and 
last inquiry, that " Candia is my native town," we lost no 
time in giving each other a home greeting. This is how I 
happened to meet Dr. Frank D. Beane. I found him an 
exceedingly pleasant gentleman, and I subsequently learned 
from those who well knew him that he promised much in 
his chosen profession. 

After several experiences of this kind in meeting peo- 
ple from the home town, more or less remote from the pa- 
ternal roof, I have become convinced that one must travel 
far and wide to get out of sight and hearing of Candia. 

When I first went to the northern part of Iowa in 
1867, a hundred miles west of the Mississippi River, nearly 
the first man I met in making my way from the railway 
station to the house which was to be my home, was a Can- 
dia man. Neither of us had seen the other for years, 
nor did we know of each other's whereabouts. The man 
to whom I refer was a Mr. Buswell, son of the late Dea- 
con Buswell. Subsequently, as a wandering schoolmas- 
ter, I went to the southern part of Iowa, where I made 
my home for some years, and there I found a Candia man 
keeping one of the best hotels in the city of Ottumwa, 



EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 257 

the Hon. Kinaldo L. Tilton, of whom I shall have some- 
thing to say in a future chapter. Go where you will, you 
will be likely to find some Candia man there ahead of 
you. 

The truth, is, Candia usually " gets there " and she 
" gets there " early. 

Of all the clergymen and doctors who have gone out 
from Candia, I '11 venture there is not one of them who 
has not been willing to take " his own medicine." And 
herein is to be found their success. They have underlined 
their work by their own individuality. The Candia minis- 
ter must have taken substantially for his head-line that 
inscription over the door of the library of Thebes, " Medi- 
cine for the soul," while the Candia doctor has given an 
affirmative answer to the query " Is there no balm in Gil- 
ead ? Is there no physician there ? " 



XLIV 

Some years ago I had the pleasure of listening to a ser- 
mon preached in the Church on the Hill by the Rev. Henry 
S. Kimball, a Candia boy, but now of Troy, N. H. In 
the evening of the Sunday on which I heard Mr. Kimball, 
he conducted an interesting service in the vestry of the 
church. 

I was so entirely pleased with the subject matter dis- 
cussed by Mr. Kimball, and with his happy manner of 
putting things, that I inquired all about the curly-headed 
boy I had known so many years previous to the sermon 
of which I write. 

Henry S. Kimball was born in Candia, and there re- 
sided until six years of age, when he went to Derry. 
When twelve years old, he returned to Candia, where he 
remained two years, and then went to Manchester, where 
he found employment as a clerk in the store of the late 
Coffin Moore, formerly of Candia. 

Mr. Kimball was a pupil in the public schools of Can- 
dia and Derry, and for a time was a student in Pinkerton 
Academy. Subsequently he pursued his studies at New 
Hampton, where he was under the instruction of the late 
Mrs. John D. Emerson, she who was Sarah Dudley. 

Mr. Kimball's theological studies were had in the Meth- 
odist Biblical School at Concord (now the theological 
department of Boston University) and in the Biblical 
Institute at New Hampton. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 259 

It was Mr. Kimball's purpose to pursue a college course 
at Dartmouth, but his health would not permit. 

I am inclined to the opinion that he was the gainer in 
giving the college the go-by and in its stead securing for 
himself that business education which in early life brought 
him face to face with men and women. That minister is 
necessarily the most successful who knows his man, and 
as I have learned, Mr. Kimball has that rarest of faculties 
in getting at those who sit under his instruction. He has 
come to know men by having met life at so many points. 
He has ever held himself in close connection with the 
world, so that his messages from the pulpit have been 
suited to the immediate wants of his people. In all his 
preaching he has never been known to shoot over the 
heads of his hearers ; his aim has been straight for the 
pews. 

Mr. Kimball has held pastorates in Sutton, Lake- 
port, and Rochester, N. H., and in Lynn, Boylston, and 
Hyannis, in Massachusetts, and in Killingly, Conn. At 
present he is pastor of the Congregational church in Troy, 
N. H. In two of his parishes there were such far-reaching 
revivals under his ministry that the historians of the two 
towns refer to them in heartiest terms of commendation. 

At Boylston, Mass., the late John B. Gough and family 
were attendants upon Mr. Kimball's ministry. Mr. Kim- 
ball found in the great reformer and orator one of his 
most delightful and appreciative friends. 

The Kev. Henry S. Kimball has never left a church in 
debt. He has had several under his charge, which were 
burdened with obligations, but he has so managed in 
every instance that the debt was paid and the mortgage 
burned. 



260 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

In spite of the years, Mr. Kimball keeps himself in 
touch with the young people, so that he interests and 
holds them now as readily as he did in the earlier days 
of his preaching. The truth is, such a man as is Mr. 
Kimball, never grows old. He is bound to keep step with 
the world, so that nothing is likely to get ahead of him. 
Mr. Kimball " takes no man's dust," for he never fails to 
" keep up with the procession." 

For several years Mr. Kimball had the care of the 
Little Wanderers' Home in Boston, and often went West 
to secure homes for those under his charge. 

It is only a day or two ago that an Arlington woman 
said to me that she had the pleasantest remembrances of 
Mr. Kimball, he having shown her so many courtesies at 
one time, when visiting the Wanderers' Home. 

In May, 1901, Mr. Kimball gave the address on Deco- 
ration Day before the G. A. R. and citizens of Candia, 
an address of which I have heard Candia people speak in 
a most complimentary way. 

At the installation of the Rev. Mr. Curtis in Candia in 
1902, the Rev. Mr. Kimball was invited to deliver the 
address to the people. 

During all these years, Mr. Kimball has been officially 
connected with the public schools, serving as superin- 
tendent and as a member on various school committees. 
He is now a member of the Troy School Board. 

A busy life, one crammed full of work, is the life that 
Mr. Kimball has lived and is still living. The press in 
every locality where he has labored has been filled with 
laudatory paragraphs of his ministry and with his pro- 
nounced ability and taking way as a public speaker. 

I reproduce the following that has been said of Mr. 




REV. HENRY S. KIMBALL 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 261 

Kimball in the public print, which will serve as a sample 
of the much that has been written of him. 

Candia will be glad to read these words of cordial com- 
mendation of one of her boys. 

STRAFFORD COUNTY 

The Congregational church in Rochester has extended 
an unanimous call to the Rev. Henry S. Kimball, of Boyl- 
ston, Mass., to become their pastor. Mr. Kimball has for 
several years past been known as one of the most earnest 
and active clergymen in central Massachusetts. He is a 
worker of skill and zeal, both in and out of the pulpit, has 
largely increased the number and strength of his present 
church, and has excellent standing as a writer and speaker, 
fully up to the topics of the time. 

The " Carroll County Pioneer," in its report of the 
county Sunday-school convention recently held at Wake- 
field, said : " The Rev. H. S. Kimball kej^t us wide awake 
in the evening on the subject ' How to make home attrac- 
tive.' Spicy, suggestive, soothing, yet searching, the effect 
of it was to make us all desire to carry out his ideas in an 
ideal, happy home. During the four and a half years' 
pastorate of the Rev. Henry S. Kimball at Boylston 
nearly fifty have joined the church on confession of faith, 
and the Sabbath school has almost doubled. His brethren 
in this state regret his departure to New Hampshire." 

The Springvale " Advocate " says that "the Rev. H. S. 
Kimball, of Rochester, delivered a stirring lecture on the 
' Evils of Intemperance,' at Springvale, Wednesday even- 
ing. A fierce snowstorm prevailed outside, yet the attend- 
ance was good. It was a rare treat, for the material was 
original and the speaker's manner peculiarly happy. He 



262 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

held the closest attention of the audience. Excellent music 
was furnished by the Free Baptist choir. The meeting 
was under the auspices of the united temperance societies." 

In addition to his professional life, Mr. Kimball has 
proven himself a valuable and leading citizen in every town 
where he has made a home, and he has never left a place 
for another field, where the people have not expressed 
many a regret in losing so worthy an instructor and so 
helpful a townsman. Mr. Kimball looks on the bright side 
of everything. He sees the best there is in men and wo- 
men, and he meets them more than half way. He invariably 
gives more than half the road, so he never crowds one to 
the wall. Much of Mr. Kimball's success has come from 
his abounding, genial nature, coupled with his untiring zeal 
in every good work. He never leaves anything undone in 
promoting the best interests of the individual and the 
community. He has kept himself at the front through his 
ceaseless activity. He does n't wait for an opportunity to 
do something, but he creates the opportunity, and then goes 
ahead and does the work. 

In all his church labors he is a leader, asking no one to 
go where he is not willing first to go himself. 

Mr. Kimball is an earnest and eloquent advocate in all 
reform movements. He has given some of his most earnest 
and effective pleadings in the cause of temperance. As a 
speaker he has a vein of humor that he uses in a telling 
way. But I cannot tell all that has now become part and 
parcel of the public life of the Rev. Henry S. Kimball. It 
must suffice to say that he has had no spare moments in 
his unusually busy life, and he is still hard at work with no 
thought of letting go his grip on this matter-of-fact world. 

The -people of Candia, I am sure, will be especially 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 263 

pleased to learn of the delightful home life of Mr. Kim- 
ball. Mrs. Kimball is a constant encouragement to Mr. 
Kimball in all his private and public life, and their three 
charming daughters give sweet emphasis to that life. 

One of the daughters is with her husband in Porto Rico, 
another is the wife of the principal of the high school in 
Palmer, Mass., while the third daughter is a teacher, and 
a lecturer of some note. 

In a recent letter received from Mr. Kimball he writes : 
" I have a great love for any object or person having the 
Candia stamp. I love the Candia roads, her stone walls, 
her ledges, her hills, her varied landscape views, her school- 
houses, her churches, and especially her men and women, 
whose lives have been an inspiration to me from my very 
childhood." 

Mr. Kimball is abundantly worthy of his native town, 
and as such she recognizes that he has brought honor and 
a good name to his home town. The Rev. Henry S. Kim- 
ball " has won his spurs." 



It affords me a peculiar pleasure to give place to the 
following good word given the " story-teller " by the Hon. 
Luther W. Emerson of New York City — or rather by 
"Lute," the boy who lived almost next door to me in 
district No. 4 in Candia. 

And then he has written in such an easy, elegant way, 
that I am fully persuaded he should have made himself the 
author of these reminiscences instead of Wilson Palmer. 
I publish his communication without the least apology, 
for I simply delight in having one speak well of me. " A 
good name," you know, " is rather to be chosen than great 
riches." 



264 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

THE STORY OF THE STOEY-TELLER 

Every one of the forty-four chapters of Wilson Palmer's 
" Candia Keminiscences " I have read with ever-increas- 
ing pleasure, and now that he has given us the last of the 
series my regrets are many and I feel a loss and loneliness 
without them as I used to feel the " day after school." But 
I am glad to learn that these chapters will soon reappear 
with many additions, in the more enduring form of a book, 
which will be of great value in preserving the personal 
biography of many of the fathers and mothers, boys and 
girls, which will be the very best history of the old town 
itself. I feel under many personal obligations to Wilson 
Palmer for the charm and pleasure he has given me in 
these reminiscences. Like the " Wizard of the North " he 
has brought me face to face with the old friends, and I 
have communed with many a loved one as of old. I have 
basked in their smiles — heard again their ringing laugh- 
ter. I have walked with them along familiar paths — once 
more sat by the old fireside — drunk in the beauty of the 
matchless landscape — heard again the songs of the birds 
and the ripple of the brooks, as in my boyhood days. This 
story of the olden time has been told so vividly and hap- 
pily by Mr. Palmer that I have asked who will tell us the 
story of this magic Story-Teller, and who will paint the 
portrait of this painter ? As no one of the brilliant men 
and women about whom Mr. Palmer has so charmingly 
written — and many of whom are still living — has appeared 
to undertake that pleasurable task, therefore the writer will 
give to the reader of these reminiscences a brief story of 
their author, not, however, without many misgivings as to 
his ability to properly and justly paint this picture. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 265 

It must needs be that Wilson Palmer was born in that 
famous "district No. 4" about which he has so often 
written, until another writer has called him to task and 
reminded him that there were other districts of the town. 
I assume that they would be described as " and there were 
other districts also." Remember, dear reader, that during 
some of the years Mr. Palmer writes, this little country 
district, consisting of only fourteen families, reared and sent 
to college and graduated eight young men. I will call the 
roll. Two Emersons, one Patten, three Palmers, and two 
Frenches, and in later years it reared and graduated the 
famous poet, Sam Walter Foss, and three more Emersons. 
Twelve college graduates ! Tell me why Palmer should not 
feel justly proud, and why he should not exultantly ex- 
claim, " Let the world break that record if it can ! " 

There was the little red schoolhouse that none of us can 
ever forget — our first university. The writer recalls with 
great clearness that " parsing class " in Milton or Shake- 
speare, unknown in our schools of to-day, consisting of 
some half dozen of the brightest members of the school. 
This class recited in the afternoon, and its recitation was 
the ' star ' performance of the day. I remember the in- 
terest we younger pupils took in that recitation because 
of the debates that were sure to arise on the all-important 
questions whether a particular word was a preposition or 
conjunction, an adverb or an adjective ; whether this sen- 
tence was in the active or passive voice. Citations from 
grammar and dictionary were numerous, and discussion 
ran high with the keenest enthusiasm. Still the best of 
good spirits always prevailed. Now the " star actor " on 
these occasions was Wilson Palmer. I have recalled this 
scene for the purpose of giving the best insight to the 



266 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

mental characteristics of Wilson Palmer within my know- 
ledge, and showing in very truth that the boy is father to 
the man. Palmer dearly loved discussion ; he sought the 
reason of things — delighted in the clash of ideas, in the 
triumph of the ready wit ; he was a controversialist. It 
followed naturally that he was one of the ablest debat- 
ers and speakers in the " lyceum on the hill," and after- 
wards was without a peer in school, academy, and college. 
Like all the farmers' boys of old Candia, he was thrown 
early upon his own resources. He was not ashamed to 
work, and work hard, to help father and mother "make 
the ends meet." It was the case, as with others, of hard 
work, scanty living, and high thinking. There was little 
delay with the three Palmer brothers, Albert, Wilson, and 
Alanson, in forming a determination to get an education, 
and that the highest and best of their time, and that, too, 
at any cost of sacrifice and toil. Wilson attended the high 
school in the town, then went to Atkinson and Pembroke 
Academies, teaching school winters until prepared to enter 
Dartmouth College, together with his brother Alanson in 
the fall of 1856, graduating in the class of 1860. You ask 
me his rank in scholarship ? I do not know, and he did not 
care, satisfied with the rating of his classmates, which is 
the most accurate and impartial in life, and which was, in 
this case, that he was one of the ablest all-round men of 
his class, and one of the readiest wits in the college of his 
time. Palmer had only one peer in wit and repartee, and 
strange to relate, that peer was born within a hundred 
yards of Palmer's birthplace. " Bill " Patten, as we all 
loved to call him, — a veritable prince of good fellows, as 
brilliant of mind as he was generous of heart, — and 
" Wils " Palmer were the twin wits and jokers of their time 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 267 

in college, and their fame descended to college students and 
professors long after college halls had ceased to echo with 
their hearty laughter. It was "Bill" who played this 
practical joke on "• Wils." They two, with another class- 
mate, called on three young lady friends residing in a 
near-by town. One of the young ladies was unfortunately 
deaf and dumb. "Bill " and the other student, with fell 
design, invited the two young ladies to a walk or drive, 
leaving " Wils " to entertain the unfortunate girl for two 
mortal hours by pantomime. It is fair to say that Palmer 
claimed that Patten or the " other fellow " was the vic- 
tim ; however, the joke was taken in the best of good 
humor. 

What is sadder than the college graduate with his 
" sheepskin " fresh in hand, all uncertain where to go 
and what to do next ? But the exchequer must be 
replenished, so Palmer went immediately after gradua- 
tion to teaching at Arlington, Massachusetts, and sub- 
sequently became principal of the high school at Win- 
chester, Mass., and for a time was a member of its board 
of education. 

Not wholly satisfied with that profession as a life work, 
he resolved to become a lawyer, and to that end entered the 
law office of Hon. David Cross of Manchester, N. H., and 
completed his legal education with one year at the Albany 
Law School, graduating in the class of 1864. Now he was 
given the privilege to struggle to practice for and on his 
clients, and quite as often the client to practice on him. 
Perhaps no time in life is more critical or pathetic to the 
aspiring young lawyer than to sit in a silent and dingy 
office waiting for the client who never " turns up." Palmer 
was four years distant from his college graduation during 



268 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

that period, and while poring over Blackstone and Kent, 
dusty statutes and codes, Cupid had been no less busy, 
sinofins: his sweetest melodies between the lines, — in 
plain prose, Palmer was "in love." The question whether 
a professional man should marry before or after he has 
gained a position and a competence in his profession must 
remain unanswered as a general proposition, and must be 
left to the individual to decide. Palmer had won the heart 
and now the hand of Hattie A. Currier, daughter of the 
Hon. David Currier, of Derry, N. H., and in the fall of 
1864 was married. As he has written of some others, 
it certainly was most applicable to him, this winning was 
one of the greatest achievements of his life. Hattie 
Currier was a brilliant girl, charming of manner, spark- 
ling with wit, of marked intelligence and of superior 
accomplishments. It was the writer's happy fortune to 
often visit her at her home in Oyster Bay and to be a 
guest at her hospitable and generous board. Now Palmer 
had no sooner joined the ranks of the benedicts than he 
was compelled to resolve himself into a committee of one 
on ways and means. He could not wait for the elusive 
client, so it was good-by forever, as it afterwards proved, 
to the practice of the law. Soon thereafter we find him in 
Independence, la., systematizing and grading her public 
schools, and he was superintendent of them for five years, 
and during that period was doing much institute work 
throughout the state. He lectured and spoke on educa- 
tional matters in more than thirty counties of that great 
state, so that in the year 1871, Palmer's friends made him 
a candidate in the state convention for state superintend- 
ent of public instruction, but he was defeated by a very 
narrow margin and by a colonel who had won his spurs in 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 269 

the Civil War. After one year as superintendent of schools 
in Sycamore, 111., he returned in 1873 to Iowa, and was 
for three years superintendent of schools at Ottumwa. 
Towards the close of this term it was reported that Mrs. 
Palmer desired to return East to be nearer her friends 
and home, but knowing Palmer's intense love for his na- 
tive town, it is easy to believe that he more than seconded 
the proposition. However that may have been, we find 
him located in 1878 at Oyster Bay, Long Island, N. Y., 
where he was connected with her schools for seven years 
following. Wilson Palmer, like his brothers Albert and 
Alanson, and his sister, Mrs. Dolber, was an expert teacher, 
having great aptitude in inspiring his pupils with his own 
nervous enthusiasm to think and to work for themselves. 
Still, during all these years. Palmer was dissatisfied with 
his calling and his achievements. He longed for a broader 
field of action. So we do not wonder that in 1885 he as- 
sisted in establishing the " Oyster Bay Pilot," becoming 
its first editor, and continuing in that capacity for seven 
years. At last, the round block reaches and fits the round 
hole, or the square block the square hole. After a half life- 
time. Palmer finds his proper place, his sphere, his con- 
genial calling — the profession he should have entered 
the day after he left Dartmouth. 

Again the old " Parsing Class " is revived and contin- 
ued on broader lines in the columns of a newspaper. 
Palmer at once made the " Oyster Bay Pilot " a power for 
educational and all uplifting influences in the community 
and the state. Subsequently he joined the ''Jamaica Stand- 
ard " at Jamaica, Long Island, and while with this paper 
he was elected the first secretary of the Queens County 
board of education of Greater New York, but the position 



270 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

was too attractive, and the emoluments too great for the 
greedy eyes of Boss Croker, and Palmer was removed to 
give place to the ward henchmen. Palmer's friends have 
always believed he made a mistake in leaving Oyster Bay, 
especially since Oyster Bay has become the summer capi- 
tal of the nation ; besides Palmer had formed friendslii23s 
with, and won the confidence of, the most influential citi- 
zens of New York, like the Townsends, the Beekmans, the 
Youngs, the Ludlams, and Theodore Koosevelt. As a 
journalist Palmer has achieved success in a preeminent 
degree, along two lines of literary work ; first, as a 
reviewer and critic of current literature, which in one in- 
stance brought a distinguished authoress to his editorial 
rooms to personally thank him for the comprehensive and 
accurate review he had made and published of her latest 
novel. The other line is that of character sketching, or 
biography. 

So, dear reader, Wilson Palmer has not written these 
reminiscences as an amateur, but as an experienced and 
highly trained expert of the literary art. 

No one trait in Palmer's character or career is more 
admirable than his intense love of his old home at Candia 
and everybody and everything belonging to his native 
town. 

No Moslem ever turned his face to the sacred city with 
greater love and worship than Wilson Palmer to the old 
town and to the old home. 



XLV 

I HAVE in mind this morning " Old Uncle John Dolber," 
as every one called him in my part of the town. 

Old Uncle John was one of the most pronounced of 
characters, with an individuality that was all his own. He 
formed his own opinions of men and things, and then 
stuck to them. He was a sort of General Jackson in his 
way. He thought for himself, and he dared say what he 
thought, — a diamond in the rough it may be, but never- 
theless a diamond ; a man who worked on his sterile, 
rocky acres with a heroism that would have made him a 
major-general at the head of armies. I remember meeting 
him one morning in the later autumn time, when he said 
to me, " Wilson, Walt and I have built this fall an un- 
godly sight of stone wall." " Walt " was his son. Uncle 
John was possessed of a vein of humor that was both tak- 
ing and catching. It was at a husking in his barn, years 
ago, when stories were told to enliven the evening, that he 
related the following. He said, in his quaint way, how it 
was told that in a certain locality the village graveyard 
was being constantly robbed of its dead ; so frequently 
were the graves disturbed that two of the young men of 
the village were set to watch the graveyard. The night 
was dark and gloomy, so the two young men easily secreted 
themselves from the sight of whomsoever the robbers 
of the dead might be. Soon there came two men with 
spade and shovel and at once began their nefarious work. 



272 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

When they had removed the coffin and placed it on the 
bier, one of the young men, all unobserved, laid himself 
upon the coffin under the white sheet. Almost immedi- 
ately, after starting to make their exit with the corj)se, 

one of the men said to the other, " How d d heavy this 

body is ! " Whereupon the living voice under the sheet 
exclaimed, " Well, you dastardly robbers, if I am too heavy 
to be carried, I can walk ! " From that date on, there was 
no more robbing the graveyard in that neighborhood. Old 
Uncle John Dolber could tell a story for all there was in 
it. How well I remember him, with that green jacket he 
always wore during the cooler months ! A man of excel- 
lent judgment, with a generous heart, he was an essential 
factor in the earlier life of the town. 

Then there was his wife, who was no less quaint and 
positive a character than was her husband. She had a keen 
appreciation of the humorous. A woman of generous im- 
pulses, she was never wanting in any good word and work. 

As I remember that older generation of men and women, 
I am impressed with the fact that they were especially true 
to their individual selves. They copied no one, but lived 
the personal individual lives that God intended they should 
live. 

Then there was Henry Eaton, father of the late Henry 
M. Eaton, a man inflexible in all his belief. I can see him 
now, as I used to see him when a boy, with his hair brushed 
back over his head to cover up, I suspect, a bald spot, look- 
ing much as the pictures represent General Jackson. 

With Henry Eaton there was " no variableness or 
shadow of turning." The father of ten children, he 
proved himself true to himself and to the state ; he was one 
of the leading men in Caudia. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 273 

And John Lane, Esquire, — who of my age does not 
remember him ! He made a striking and commanding 
figure in his double-breasted coat, well buttoned to the 
chin — and how straight he was in form! Many and many 
a time have I looked upon him with boyish admiration as 
he stood so erect in his pew at prayer time on a Sunday. 
'Squire Lane was among the foremost men of Candia. He 
was frequently consulted in a variety of ways. A good 
deal of a lawyer, he settled many a dispute. Both in his 
religion and in his politics he was absolutely unyielding. 
He was a born whig, and nothing could swerve him from 
his political faith. 

Never shall I forget those heated political discussions he 
and my father would occasionally have on the road as they 
met in passing along the highway, — the one a whig at 
white heat, and the other a democrat all over and all 
through ; necessarily their discussions were war to the hilt. 
How tired we boys would frequently get at those pro- 
longed talks ! so tired and impatient, that we would petu- 
lantly exclaim, " Do let us start up, father, and go home.'* 

John Lane would have made a good showing in Con- 
gress. He had lots of common sense, and he was otherwise 
intellectually great. He would have been a marked man 
even in these later days. 

Another of those reliable old Candia men of an earlier 
day was the late John Fitts, father of J. Lane Fitts. In 
church I sat two or three seats in the rear of Mr. Fitts's 
pew. During prayer time of a Sunday he always stood 
with his back to the minister, so that his position always 
brought him face to face with me. I vividly remember 
how his countenance during those Sunday prayers took 
on the most solemn form of worship. Mr. Fitts was a 



274 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

sincerely religious man and seldom missed his cliurcli at- 
tendance. He and Mrs. Fitts stamped their lives in an 
indelible way upon the lives of their children. Then there 
was John Fitts's brother, Joshua, who had the Bible at 
his tongue's end. Always good-natured and smiling, 
Joshua Fitts was sure to hurl at you some scriptural 
verse, even before your good-morning greeting with him 
was well over. The Bible in those days was not only read, 
but chapter after chapter of the sacred book was commit- 
ted to memory. In the Sunday-school it was the only text- 
book. The children learned their lesson directly from 
it, and not from its collaterals. In all Bible teaching this 
generation has lost ground. 

Another man comes to me this morning with all his 
pleasant and unique peculiarities. I have reference to the 
late Jonathan Emerson. Mr. Emerson (" Jock " was his 
nickname) was a regular attendant at the Church on the 
Hill, although he had to walk four miles good and strong 
to get there, if he followed the road. By cutting across 
lots he could somewhat shorten the distance. But Jonathan 
Emerson, in spite of the walk, was always in his pew on a 
Sunday, rain or shine, hot or cold. On each Lord's Day 
one looking down the road from my old home could see 
him coming along the highway a little before ten o'clock 
in the morning, his head and shoulders bobbing up and 
down in a way peculiarly their own, for be it known that 
Jonathan Emerson, instead of walking like most men with 
a swing from side to side, attained his greatest speed by a 
series of perpendicular ups and downs, so one could not 
easily mistake his peculiar walk. 

It was on a winter day, forty or more years ago, that I 
was going down State Street in Boston, when I saw in the 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 275 

distance a man approaching me with that up and down 
movement, when I at once said to myself, That man must 
be Jonathan Emerson of Candia, for no other man in all 
the wide w^orld walks as he does ; and sure enough, it was 
Jonathan Emerson. 

It was always my delight to hear Mr. Emerson pray in 
the weekly neighborhood prayer-meeting. Although one 
could seldom understand a word of his prayer, — his voice 
in a low, racing way running his words together, — still 
there was something especially lulling and soothing in his 
fervent prayers. Jonathan Emerson was of a decided, ner- 
vous, impulsive temperament. He would at times get 
unduly excited and impatient when things did n't go to his 
liking. It was at a time when he was getting hay from 
the boggy meadows up by the beaver dam, when the 
driver got stuck in the humps and hollows of the meadow 
with his load of hay, and there for a time he seemed 
likely to stay for the night. Mr. Emerson, at the ill luck 
and delay, became nearly upset with an intolerable im- 
patience, when at last, throwing his hat to the ground, he 
exclaimed, " Rum is the cause of it all. Give me here- 
after a temperance man to help me with my haying." 

It was on a Sunday morning, way back in the long ago, 
at the time when those sharp, standing collars were so 
generally worn by the men, that Mr. Emerson made his 
appearance at church with his standing collar put on 
wrong-end-foremost, the points of the collar standing out 
in bold relief from the back of his head. But all the same 
Mr. Emerson unquestionably worshiped that morning '' in 
spirit and in truth." Jonathan Emerson, with all his 
peculiarities, was an excellent neighbor, and a good man 
and just. It is a pleasure to write of him. 



XLVI 

In taking my cold plunge this morning, that great big scar 
on my left arm, caused by the late Dr. Page's sharp lance, 
fastened itself on my sight in a reminiscent way, for it 
brought the good, genial doctor pleasantly to mind. Those 
" Job's comforters," which so frequently tormented nie in 
my youth, were my first introduction to Dr. Page ; and 
what a whole-souled, sympathetic man he was ! I felt sure 
at the time he pulled out that ugly tooth for Add Mead, 
of which I have already written, that the doctor suffered 
more than Add did, and I feel quite as sure that he never 
went at me with lance in hand, when he would not have 
exchanged places with me if he could. Everybody in 
Candia knew that Dr. Page was one of the most humane 
of men. He was a man greatly beloved by every one in 
Candia. 

Then, there was Dr. Eastman, who used to drive, when 
on his way to his patients, as though they were all at the 
point of death. The doctor was one of those bright, nervous 
men, who are always on the move. 

Dr. Isaiah Lane was the first physician in Candia whom 
I well remember. I shall never forget his little gig, just 
big enough for one, and that little medicine chest, orna- 
mented with brass-headed nails. Dr. Lane, as did all the 
medical world in that day, believed in the blister and the 
lance, and in that small white powder, to be given every 
two hours, if the patient did n't sleep. Since those earlier 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 277 

times, Candia has had a long list of doctors, who put in 
their appearance after my time. 

With all due respect to the doctors, all intelligent men 
and women now sing with the poet Dryden : — 

" Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, 
Than for the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend; 
God never made his work for man to mend." 

To continue my story of the business men who have gone 
out from Candia, I mention first of all Joseph P. Dudley 
of Buffalo, New York. " Joe " Dudley is his familiar 
Candia name. Everybody in town knew Joe, for he was a 
wide-awake boy, and always up to something. From his 
earliest youth he had his eye on business. I can see him 
now, as I used to see him in the early fifties of the century 
gone by, on the very tip-top of a big load of shoes, mak- 
ing his way to Haverhill, Mass., for his father, the late 
Deacon Samuel Dudley. Candia, however, was not large 
enough to satisfy Joe's business ability, so, as a young 
man, he set out for Buffalo, New York, in 1858, and em- 
barked in the foundry business, continuing the same for 
three years. He then formed a partnership with J. D. 
Dudley and M. T. Dudley, the firm being Dudley & Co., 
and the business that of oil refining. The entire manage- 
ment was under the direction of Joseph P. Dudley, and 
the firm was very successful. In 1882 the oil business of 
Dudley & Co. was merged with that of the great Standard 
Oil Company of New York, the Buffalo business being 
known as the Star Oil Branch ; and since that time, Mr. 
Dudley has been the general manager of the Standard Oil 
Company's vast interests in Buffalo and western New 
York. Probably no man among the many able managers 



278 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

who direct the affairs of the greatest corporation in this 
country stands higher than Joe Dudley. His successful 
management of a business yearly amounting to millions of 
dollars makes him a conspicuous figure in the business 
world. Joseph P. Dudley, perhaps I should say Major 
Dudley, for such he is, came into the world with his eyes 
wide open, and head foremost ; and he has kept his eyes 
wide open all this while, so he has not let the main chance 
slip by him. He has now many a dollar in his possession, 
and, what is most commendable of all, he makes a generous 
use of his money. No charity appeals to him in vain. Joe 
Dudley is one of the more prominent citizens of Buffalo ; 
and while this is true, he has never for a moment forgot- 
ten his native town, neither has Candia forgotten him. I 
had the pleasure of meeting him a few summers ago, 
when I found him, with all his successes and honors, the 
same Joe Dudley still. 

The eldest son of the late Rev. John D. Emerson is 
now associated in business with Joseph P. Dudley, his 
uncle, and I have learned that he is another of the success- 
ful men who have gone out from Candia. 

Nat Emerson, a brother of Drs. Francis P. and William 
Robie Patten Emerson, a recent graduate of Dartmouth, 
is a bright young business man in Boston. Nat is named 
for Colonel Nathaniel Emerson of Revolutionary fame, 
and has, I am informed, much of the Colonel's daring 
spirit of push and enterprise. 

Another Candia boy who is making his count is Abra- 
ham P. Emerson, better known as " Abe." Abe has been 
for several years, and is now, the secretary of the Mer- 
rimac River Savings Bank, and he is recognized as an 
able financier. In Manchester, where he resides, he is 




JOSEPH P. DUDLEY 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 279 

highly regarded. He married a niece of the late ex- 
Governor Frederick Smyth and has a pleasant home in 
the Queen City. Abe often runs over to Candia during 
the summer months to sit under the grateful shade of the 
maples which his grandfather, the Hon. Abraham Emer- 
son, planted, and to walk again about the old farm, where 
he was taught in a practical way his first lessons in down- 
right hard work. 

I do not mistake in writing down Orrin Kimball as a 
Candia boy, although he was born elsewhere. All his ear- 
lier boyhood was passed in Candia. For years his home 
was with the late Nathaniel Robie, and during the winter 
season he attended the school in district No. 4. As boys, 
he and I were much together, so that I came to know him 
well. We had our sports in common, and in many a boyish 
race did we test our fleetness of foot. Orrin could always 
outrun me, however much I may dislike to confess the 
fact. At the word "Go," with hat in hand, Orrin would 
take on a 2.40 gait and keep it until the finish. 

I wonder if he remembers, way back in the years, how 
that he and my brother Alanson and myself, after having 
coasted on a brilliant moonlight winter evening down the 
Pine Hill, on our way home, when opposite where Benton 
Turner now resides, took a big bar from the fence, and lay 
it across the road, for the sleigh and its driver, which we 
heard by the jingle of the bells coming in the distance, 
to pass over ! 

As soon as the bar was laid, I'll venture he has not 
forgotten how we boys scampered for the orchard close 
by and secreted ourselves behind the trees. And then as 
the bar was crossed, and we recognized Deacon Patten's 
" Whoa, Billy," then we v/ell knew that the deacon was 



280 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

coming for us. But fortunately for us, " Billy " started up 
just as the deacon was about to get over the wall, so 
he was obliged to forsake his hunt and go for his horse. 
How guilty we boys felt ! So conscience-smitten were we, 
that instead of following the road home, which would 
have taken us by the deacon's house, we walked field and 
pasture with the snow knee-deep, coming out by the little 
red schoolhouse, and then up home. " Thus," as Shake- 
speare puts it, " conscience does make cowards of us all." 
Well, Orrin, that was a thoughtless trick of us boys, to say 
the least ; but then, we would n't have done it had we 
known that it was Deacon Francis Patten a-coming, for 
everybody not only respected the deacon but loved him. 

Just think of it ! We, all three of us, were pupils in the 
Sunday-school and had unquestionably sung over and 



over agam. 



" I want to be an angel, 
And with the angels stand ; 
A crown upon my forehead, 
A harp within my hand." 

And yet, with that sweet song upon our lips, we tried 
to trip up the good deacon and his horse "Billy." But 
then, each one of us could put in the scriptural plea, 
" When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as 
a child, I thought as a child ; but when I became a man 
I put away childish things." Orrin Kimball has long 
been recognized as one of the leading business men of 
Manchester. He has an attractive home in the city and a 
delightful summer residence alongside Lake Massabesic. 

Orrin, though not a " Corinthian," as Shakespeare puts 
it, is what is better yet, a Candian, " a lad of mettle, a 
good boy." 



XLVII 

In writing of those who have gone out from Candia to 
make their home in Manchester, it is not overstating the 
fact in declaring that the Queen City has been enriched 
thereby. Among the number there is the late Governor 
Frederick Smyth, whom I have incidentally mentioned in 
a previous letter. 

Frederick Smyth as a lad had simply the advantages of 
the average Candia boy. He attended the district school on 
the North Road, and subsequently was a pupil at Andover, 
Mass. For several winters he taught a country school. At 
the age of 21 years he secured a clerkship in George Por- 
ter's store in Manchester. Filling this position for two or 
three years, he formed a partnership with Porter's brother. 

I well remember when Governor Smyth was in trade, 
for it was at the time that Emily Lane t5,ught school in 
district No. 4. I have it as one of my pleasantest memo- 
ries how my father, when he went to the city, would fre- 
quently take along some of us boys with him, and never 
would he fail to drop into Porter's store for a chatty little 
talk with the then future governor of New Hampshire. 
Father always delighted to tell Mr. Smyth how everybody 
in his neighborhood loved Emily Lane, and what a beau- 
tiful and attractive young lady she was ! And then you 
ought to have seen how the appreciative young man, 
Frederick Smyth, would dish out the raisins and candy to 
us boys ! 



282 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

In all my wanderings I have never seen so sweet and 
so charming a woman as was Emily Lane. With a face 
all radiant as the summer morning, and with a form so 
stately and so, graceful, she looked and moved a queen. 
It is no wonder that we boys fell dead in love with her, 
and that we became ugly and jealous when we saw Fred- 
erick Smyth coming to the little red schoolhouse to see 
her. Emily Lane was not only beautiful in form and 
feature, but she was a woman of pronounced ability. 
She adorned all that high society life which came to her 
through the various official positions which her distin- 
guished husband filled. More than this, for she entered 
into a real and active partnership with Governor Smyth 
in all his public life. At home and throughout all her 
far-reaching travels abroad, Mrs. Smyth was recognized 
as among the first in all that constitutes a brilliant and 
attractive womanhood. American and of the people 
though she was, yet she might have well graced any court 
of royalty. Frederick Smyth owed much of his success to 
his Candia wife. 

Although I have referred to Mrs. Smyth in chapter 
VIII, I make no apology for this more emphatic word 
of a woman whose whole life threw a charm about those 
who came into her unaffected and captivating presence. 

Governor Smyth was singularly fortunate in all his 
married life ; for I have learned that the second Mrs. 
Smyth is a woman who has inherited from her Scotch an- 
cestry all those sterling qualities which exalt her sex. Of 
the public life of Governor Smyth it is not my purpose 
to write in any large way. Candia already knows it by 
heart, and she takes a commendable pride in it. It is 
more to what I have in mind, that as a boy who had to 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 283 

make his own way, Frederick Smyth early set out in ear- 
nest to do the very best that was in him. His success 
did not come from the fact that he had genius above 
others, but rather that he was willing to begin at the 
lower round of the ladder and climb with all his mind, 
might, and strength. His ideals were high, and they gave 
form and character to his work. Never quite satisfied 
with what he had done, he was always striving to do more 
and better. He never rested on his oars, neither did he 
ever make fast his boat to the shore. Governor Smyth 
kept moving, and herein is found the chief reason why he 
"got there." As a farmer's boy, as a clerk in the store, 
as the chief executive of a city, as a financier, as a legis- 
lator, as a governor, as a commissioner abroad, he did his 
best and made his score. 

My regard and love for Governor Smyth are all the 
more pronounced that, with all the honors coming to him, 
he was nevertheless a Candia boy still. He loved the town 
of his birth, and often did he visit her. It is to his great 
credit that he purchased that more-than-a-hundred-year 
schoolhouse in district No. 8, where he received his first 
lessons in study. This generous act alone would tell of 
his great, deep love for the country school and for the 
country home. 

Then his gift to the library in Candia, which has his 
name, will ever bear sweet testimony to his love for 
Candia, In many substantial ways did Governor Smyth 
remember his native town, and certain it is that she will 
never forget him. 

Then there are Francis B. Eaton and his wife, both of 
whom Candia gave to Manchester. He is Deacon Eaton 
now, and has been for many years, and yet I '11 venture 



284 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

that he enjoys having his friends call him " Frank." Mr. 
Eaton, though not a graduate of the college, yet in every 
sense of the word is he liberally educated. With a literary 
taste, he. has always been a student and a lover of books. 

I distinctly and pleasantly remember that he gave a 
lecture more than fifty years ago before the Candia 
Lyceum, and vividly do I recall the ease and grace with 
which he delivered that address. Boy as I was, it cannot 
be expected that I would clearly remember the subject 
and discussion of his lecture. But I do remember the 
immaculate neatness of his shirt front, and that well-fitting 
collar, and that spotless white handkerchief which he so 
daintily manipulated during the little rest between his 
sentences. It is true now, and always has been, and 
always will be, that the boy and girl learn their first les- 
sons in an objective way. The eye is the fiirst on the list 
of schoolmasters. The lecture that he gave was unques- 
tionably an excellent one, for Deacon Eaton, at that early 
age, was well up in the literary world, and a good deal 
conversant with the best English. 

Candia is familiar with the public life of Francis B. 
Eaton, so I need not delay by repeating that which has 
already been written of him. 

It would, however, be inexcusably forgetful in me were 
I not to make prominent the fact that Mr. Eaton is 
the first Candia man to put in printed form the story of 
Charmingfare. It is a pleasant and grateful contribution 
to the town he holds in fond remembrance. His wife, who 
was Lucretia Lane, a sister of the late Mrs. Governor 
Smyth, is a woman, I should judge, who has taken life in 
a quiet, philosophical way, getting the best and the most 
out of it. 




FREDERICK SMYTH 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 285 

I am sure there is no one in Canclia who does not cor- 
dially remember George Emerson, now a resident of 
Manchester. George was always a genial man ~ and that 
is just what he is to-day. Everybody likes him. Indeed, 
no one could well help liking him. A man brimful of 
common sense, George always knows what he is talking 
about. He has that rare and fortunate quality of soul, 
mind, and body, of getting close to those with whom he 
meets. He attracts and draws to himself and never repels. 

You, dear reader, know as well as I do that there are 
those whom to meet is to send a cold shiver down your 
spine. They somehow freeze your very blood, and stop for 
the moment its warm life-currents. You feel, when well 
rid of the presence of such as these, that you have run up 
against an iceberg. You are so benumbed all over that 
you fear that you may never again experience the sensa- 
tion of that genial, emotional feeling that comes from a 
great, big, warm heart. 

Well, George Emerson is not one of these. He imparts 
warmth and life and good cheer. I remember way back 
in my academic days I would frequently say to George in 
a jocose way, and yet a good deal in earnest, " Why don't 
you get married ? " adding, " I am sure there is many a 
girl who would delight to set her cap for you, if she 
thought the chances were in her favor of catching you ; " 
and then, to give emphasis to my advisory saying, I fur- 
ther added, " I know a most estimable young lady in 
Atkinson, where I am attending school, whom you could 
have, I well know, through the gentle and winning ap- 
proaches you would naturally make." But George did n't 
take my advice, but did what was better, for he married 
one of Candia's most worthy and most amiable daughters. 



286 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

George Emerson was and is greatly respected and be- 
loved by his native town, and when he left her to make 
his home in Manchester, Candia suffered a decided loss. 
But then what Candia has lost by so many of her towns- 
people going to the city to live, Manchester has gained, so 
that the equality of ratios in the general census-taking is 
preserved. Nothing, be it remembered, in this great world 
of ours can be lost. We may indeed change places, but 
we still enter as factors all the same into the final count. 



XLVIII 

Another Candia man who early in life went to Man- 
chester to work out his future is John Taylor Moore, son 
of the late John Moore, Esq., and a brother of Henry 
W. Moore. 

John T. Moore received his education in the district 
school at the village and at the academy in Oilman ton, 
and in the normal school at Merrimack. He studied law 
in the office of Judge Chandler E. Potter, and in that of 
the late United States Senator, Moses Norris. 

His entire professional life has been had in Manchester, 
where for all these years he has had a large practice. 

Mr. Moore is a man who has a clear conception of men 
and things. He does his own thinking without asking any 
one's permission. Mr. Moore is always an agreeable man 
to meet. 

John D. Patterson, whose name has already been men- 
tioned in these Reminiscences, though not a native of 
Candia, was nevertheless a Candia man, having resided 
there for many years during his earlier manhood. Dur- 
ing all his maturer and later life he was engaged in busi- 
ness in Manchester. A man of pleasing address, and in 
possession of the most abounding good nature, he always 
manifested a delightful presence. He invariably had a 
pleasant word to say to everybody. I have often won- 
dered if his genial nature ever became disturbed. 

I met him at his home during his last illness, and found 



288 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

him the same agreeable man as he was when in his usual 
health. I now recall with exceeding pleasure the cordial 
welcome Mr. and Mrs. Patterson gave me to their home. 
At the time of my call, Mr. Patterson was not confined 
to his room, so he insisted on taking me to a drive, through 
what he called the newer part of Manchester. We went 
up past where formerly was the " Old Rye Field," and 
past the more elegant residences in the city. As it was 
getting late in the afternoon, I was fearing that I might 
miss the 4.20 p. m. train to Candia. Mr. Patterson, see- 
ing I was getting a bit nervous as to the time, said, " Now, 
Mr. Palmer, you keep quiet and possess your soul with 
patience, and if I do not get you to the train in season, 
I will drive you over to Candia." Never doubting, John 

D. Patterson looked on the bright side of everything. 
He carried the sunshine with him wherever he went, 
and dealt it out in generous quantities. Mrs. Patterson, 
she who was Hannah Eaton, is a most estimable woman 
with her home still in Manchester. 

I think Candia may well claim as her son the Hon. 
Henry E. Burnham, now United States Senator from 
New Hampshire, for Mrs. Burnham, daughter of Mr. 
and Mrs. John D. Patterson, is substantially a Candia 
girl. That Senator Burnham is a man of excellent judg- 
ment is seen in the fact that he married one of the most 
charming girls of Charmingfare, and as the husband and 
wife are one, and for the further reason that the wife is 
that one, hence it follows in a logical way, that Senator 
Burnham is a Candia man. Senator Burnham is a man 
of rare ability, and strictly honest in all his work. New 
Hampshire honored herself in sending the Hon. Henry 

E. Burnham to the United States Senate. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 289 

Philip A. Butler, who was born in Candia in the early 
thirties of the century just passed, is now the distin- 
guished artist, known on both sides of the water. Mr. 
Butler has traveled Europe, making her picture galleries 
his objective point. He is a member of the Boston Art 
Club. 

Mr. Butler is one of those delightful men who shoot 
the sunlight right across one's pathway. In conversation, 
he is ready and pleasing and always instructive. He takes 
especial pleasure in meeting a Candia man. Within the 
past few years, I have met Mr. Butler on several occa- 
sions, and have invariably found him to be the entertain- 
ing man that he is. I am indebted to him for a painting 
in oil, of the Colcord schoolhouse, where I first attempted 
to " teach the young idea how to shoot." This picture I 
have hanging in my study-room, and whenever I look at 
it, I seem to see visions and dream dreams of the half- 
century gone by. 

Then there is Thomas Lang, born in Candia Village. 
When a boy, I thought that Mr. Lang must have been 
cut out for a minister, he was so proper and dignified 
in all that he said, and in all that he did. He was indeed 
a model young man, and as model a man in his maturer 
and later years. Mr. Lang has led a busy and successful 
life. A lover of books, his library, as one might suspect, 
is filled with the choicest reading. As an artist, he has 
given expression in pictorial form to much of sentiment 
and poetry. Mr. Lang has a pleasant home in Maiden, 
Mass. 

The late Rufus E. Patten ! Who in Candia does n't re- 
member him ? It was always^ restful to meet Rufus E. Pat- 
ten, for he was particularly interesting in conversation, and 



290 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

never was he known to be in a hurry. In his farm work, he 
never hastened matters. He was seldom through with 
his haying until his neighbors had begun to dig their po- 
tatoes, and he usually began with his potatoes after the 
first little freeze. Mr. Patten took the world in a philo- 
sophical way. He recognized the fact that " the world was 
not made in a day," so he was willing to take his time. 
A fluent conversationalist, he would interest one by the 
hour, the listener, however much in haste he might have 
been, taking little note of time. Mr. Patten was rich in 
anecdote, and so he usually filled in his talk with many a 
story, and the story was always to the point. 

I can see Mr. Patten now as I used to see him, driving 
along in his somewhat rickety wagon with a horse slow 
but sure, and can now hear his " Whoa " as he met some 
neighbor on the highway; for 'Squire Patten was ready 
every day in the week for a chat. His conversation 
usually drifted to politics. He was a democrat of the 
Jefferson! an stamp, and never was he more delightfully 
at home than when discussing town, state, and national 
democracy. When Candia had a democratic majority, 
Rufus E. Patten was uniformly the moderator at the 
annual town meetings ; and a most elegant presiding 
officer did he make. His " Bring in your votes, gentle- 
men, for representative " became a mosaic if not a classic. 
And then the inviting and pleasing way in which he 
would say, " Is the Rev. Mr. Murdock in the house ? If 
so, will he please come to the desk and offer prayer ? " 
In those good old days, immediately after the choice of a 
moderator was made, prayer was offered. This custom, I 
think, still prevails in Candia. 

In the several homes I have had since leaving Candia, 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 291 

I have never heard a prayer in a town meeting. To get at 
things in the original, one only needs to get back into the 
New Hampshire towns. 

Some have questioned if the time and occasion are fit- 
ting for a prayer, right at the beginning of a red-hot town 
meeting. But why not? The harder and hotter the fight 
is to be at the polls the more earnest and pleading should 
be the prayer. It was a happy thought on the part of 
the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, chaplain of the United 
States Senate, that led him to request the members of that 
august body to join him in repeating the Lord's Prayer 
at the close of his morning invocation. But those digni- 
fied Senators would not repeat it, and all the worse for 
them. Their refusal to join the Rev. Dr. Hale reminded 
me of the man who when importuned by the revivalist to 
rise for prayers replied, "What, I rise for prayers! Why, 
1 am an old member." If there is a spot in all God's 
world where one needs to pray, it is in the city of Wash- 
ington, D. C, and the honorable Senate of the United 
States should join in the prayer before the " amen " is 
said. So in spite of everything that may be said to the 
contrary, I a good deal believe in the old-fashioned town- 
meeting prayer. I can now hear Mr. Murdock's " O Lord, 
may we this day make a wise selection in our choice of 
rulers, and may they rule in thy fear, and in thy love." 

The prayer well over, then would Moderator Patten 
begin the business of the day with a clear understanding 
of his duties. Occasionally he would be obliged to call 
out, " Is Captain John Smith in the house ? " for the pur- 
pose of softening the boisterous discussions so frequently 
carried on at fever heat in close neighborhood to the 
stove. Rufus E. Patten, however moderate he might have 



292 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

been on his farm and on the highway, well understood 
how to put through a town meeting with commendable dis- 
patch. He always understood what was to come next, 
and he was well up with all parliamentary proceedings. 
'Squire Patten filled nearly every public position in his 
town, and he filled them with credit to himself and to his 
constituency. He never failed to please his audience in 
public speech. He had an attractive presence on the plat- 
form, and he spoke with all that natural grace and ease 
which gained him a ready hearing. 

Had Rufus E. Patten given all his time and attention 
to politics and pulled the wires as do our modern poli- 
ticians, he might have easily made his way to the guber- 
natorial chair, or to a seat in Congress, for he had both 
the ability and the taking way in doing and saying things. 
He acted, however, the wiser part in living an honored 
citizen among his own townsmen. 



XLIX 

It would be difficult to find a man in Candia, of my age, 
who did not more or less frequently, when a boy, go to 
the store for his mother. Mother used to say to me, 
" Wilson, with these eggs you are to get two quarts of 
molasses, a half pound saleratus, a quarter of a pound of 
tea, and two nutmegs," — and then off to Henry M. 
Eaton's store I would make my way. 

I readily recall Henry M. Eaton now, just as he was 
behind his counter. With a clean-shaven face and a 
ruddy complexion, he had about him the glow of health 
and the atmosphere of the summer time. In spite of the 
fact that Mr. Eaton seemed, at first, not easy of approach, 
yet one upon acquaintance found him bubbling over with 
humor and good-nature. He always took no little delight 
in teasing us boys, just to see what we would have to say 
in return. It was a pleasure to me to watch him walking 
behind his counter to get at the goods one wished to pur- 
chase. His step was an elastic one. There was a certain 
grace in his every movement that one could not easily 
forget. 

If it had not been " awfully wicked " to dance in those 
days, Henry M. Eaton, with a partner as attractive in 
form and facial appearance as he, would have made a 
striking and taking figure, not only in the round dance, 
but in the fancy dances of this later day. As I remember 
him, his step never cut an acute angle, but more nearly 



294 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

described a curve. But then, they did n't dance in those 
days, — I mean the church people. To them, the violin, 
as a translator of music other than " Old Hundred " and 
other tunes that stretched themselves out in prolonged 
notes, was the devil's own instrument. 

Mr. Eaton invariably kept his store in the neatest and 
most orderly manner. He had a place for everything, and 
everything was in its place. He knew just where to look 
for what you wanted. And how carefully he would handle 
those eggs that mother sent to the store for the molasses, 
saleratus, tea, and nutmegs ! And how accurate he was 
in his count ! In his manipulation I don't believe he ever 
broke an egg, or made the number more or less than what 
it was. Henry M. Eaton was exact in everything. One 
could rely upon him with all that assurance that is had 
in the multiplication table ; and he in turn demanded of 
others the same accuracy with which he himself wrought 
in every department of life he represented. Well, my 
purchases made, I trudged home with my jug of mo- 
lasses and three small packages neatly done up in yellow 
paper. 

It was on one of these store trips that the thought oc- 
curred to me that I was getting to be too large a boy for these 
errands to the store, and so should be shifting for myself. 
And thus it happened that on one of my homeward walks 
from Henry M. Eaton's store, I called at the home of Mr. 
Freeman Parker to hire myself out as a farm boy. Mr. 
Parker received me kindly, and when we had talked the 
matter well over he agreed to take me for what I could 
do, and give me a home, and at the age of twenty-one years 
give me a hundred dollars and a brand new suit of clothes. 
As I had my eye on business, I asked Mr. Parker if the 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 295 

• 

new suit of clothing included boots and a cap. To all of 
which he responded, " Yes." So far as I was concerned, 
I sealed the bargain right then and there, but when I 
reached home and had made known to my father and 
mother my plans, they a good deal objected to the agree- 
ment, so that like an obedient- child I yielded to their 
wishes and advice, and Mr. Parker had to look for another 
boy. Had it not been for the " No " of father and mother, 
I might now have been farming my three or four sections 
of land out West, instead of writing these " Reminis- 
cences." Who knows to the contrary? How a "Yes" or 
a " No " may, and oftentimes does, change the current of 
one's entire life ! But to return to Henry M. Eaton, for 
he was not only a storekeeper, but he was a man of affairs 
as well. In early life he taught school, and in his later 
life he was actively interested in town affairs. He was for 
some years a member of the board of selectmen, town 
clerk, postmaster, and representative to the state legisla- 
ture, and as a justice of the peace he did no little law 
business. For years he was an active and prominent 
member of the Church on the Hill. The long and short of 
it is, Henry M. Eaton was one of the leading citizens of 
Candia. Severely rigid in his religious belief, he lived 
under the law and by the law, without a murmur or a 
complaint, and he expected others to do the same. He 
received the law as it read, without any side explanation. 
I can but have a profound respect for those men and 
women of a former generation who gave a literal defini- 
tion to their scriptural reading, and then honestly and 
persistently tried to live up to their *' thus saith the Lord." 
Henry M. Eaton was one of those men who never 
wanted the truth sugar-coated. He ever held himself ready 



296 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

to meet the fact, without any softening. He was in earnest 
in what he did, and he did it well. 

It must be sixty years ago that on a summer day I stood 
by the window of the post-office, then kept by the late 
William Turner in the house where Henry W. Moore now 
resides, when Mr. Turner handed me a letter addressed 
to mother by a sister of hers residing in Michigan, and I 
distinctly remember there was twenty-five cents postage 
paid on it. In those days letter postage was rated by the 
mile, while now two cents will carry an ounce letter to any 
point in all this broad land. The young lover could not 
now write his sweetheart every day, as is the custom with 
the average young lady and gentleman, if the postal laws 
now were what they formerly were. 

Now, the young man dead in love may hear at eventide 
what his best girl had for breakfast in the morning, and 
who her callers were the evening before, — and all this for 
two cents. Why, " sparking " at a distance has in these 
days become a veritable presence, save that by this two- 
cent arrangement lovers cannot press each other's hands, 
and fondly " salute each other with a kiss." But never 
mind, William Turner was postmaster when it cost some- 
thing to mail a letter, and he served in this official position 
under two administrations. He was a soldier in the War of 
1812, and did his duty in time of war as effectually as in 
times of peace. 

In many ways one of the most distinguished men of the 
olden time in Candia was Samuel Anderson of hotel fame. 
Anderson's tavern was known far and wide by the travel- 
ing public. The line of travel in those days was by the 
Boston and Concord turnpike, and Anderson's tavern was 
one of the most popular halting-places between Concord 




HENRY E. BURNHAM 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 297 

and Boston. Samuel Anderson well understood how to run 
a hotel. He entertained by his well-laden table, and by his 
fund of anecdote. 

In conversation he used all the biggest words in the dic- 
tionary, and he had a pronunciation all his own. 

It was at one of Candia's annual town meetings that 
the repairing of a certain highway came up under a heated 
discussion. Those in favor of mending the highway claimed 
that unless something was soon done the road would at an 
early date grow up to bushes and trees. As the story goes, 
Mr. Anderson stoutly opposed any outlay of money upon 
the road, and in the speech he made sustaining his side of 
the question, he ended with the following climax : " Let 
the trees grow in the said highway if need be until they 
shall reach the colossal heights of the ipj-ram-ids of Egypt." 
Mr. Anderson always wore his pigtail queue, and in the 
colder months of the year his long, circular cloak. He was 
a marked man in all that he said and in all that he did. 

Among the great army of those who were guests at 
Anderson's tavern there was not one of them who could 
not say with Johnson, " There is nothing which has yet 
been contrived by man by which so much happiness is 
produced, as by a good tavern or inn." 

" Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, 
Where'er his stages may have been, 
May sigh to think he still has found 
The warmest welcome at an inn." 

No complete history of Candia will ever be written with 
the story of Anderson's tavern left out, and the host therein 
will be written down as the quaintest and most unique of 
characters. His " really in fact " comes back to me as I 
write of him. 



I AM sure that my Candia and other friends will readily 
pardon me that I refer so frequently in these " Reminis- 
cences " to school district No. 4, for it must be remembered 
that there I was born and bred, and there received my 
primary education. There are my earliest and fondest 
associations. It was there that I first saw the sun coming 
up from out the east over the then dense woodland, and 
it was there I first saw his going down behind that long 
range of mountains as seen from my boyhood home. So 
there is every reason why I shoidd linger by the way in 
my home neighborhood, in writing this little story of Can- 
dia. I am aware that in a casual way I have already men- 
tioned most of the fathers and mothers who were when liv- 
ing almost the next-door neighbors to my father's home ; 
but I have written of them in no largely descriptive way, 
so I am not repeating myself in writing of them at greater 
length. 

I have in mind this morning the late Hon. and Mrs. 
Abraham Emerson, whom to know was to honor and to 
love. 

I have this moment re-read a letter from Mr. Emer- 
son to me dated 1881. In that letter he expresses his 
great love for Candia, and particularly his great love 
for his home neighborhood. He writes among other things 
the following : " Never has there gone out from our school 
district any one who has brought discredit to the home 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 299 

neighborhood." And then with manifest pride he adds, 
"Many of her boys and girls have brought to the old 
home distinguished honor and credit." Squire Emerson 
had an unsurpassed pride in his home, and in its imme- 
diate surroundings. He believed in and loved his boys 
and girls with that intense love which begat in them an 
affection for their father and mother which lightened the 
burden of growing age, and which scattered the sunshine 
all about. Mrs. Emerson, what a wife and mother she 
was ! How she lovingly devoted her long life to her home ! 
What abounding welcome she gave to her children as they 
came to her one after another, until her happy home was 
filled with the voices and ringing laughter of her boys 
and girls ! What if they did now and then break a broom- 
stick in their attempt to jump over it, or break a plate, 
or smash a window glass, or upset a chair and disarrange 
things generally ! What of it, I repeat, other than that the 
good, patient mother saw in all this occasional confusion 
the bounding, persistent life of the children which in after 
years was to develop that spirit of push and enterprise 
which was to secure that success which has already come 
to them in their respective departments of life. Mrs. Abra- 
ham Emerson adorned the virtues, and as a wife and 
mother she gave loving emphasis to all true womanhood. 
With a joyous note of thankfulness in all her song, she 
received the children as God's best and richest gifts to 
the home. No wonder " her children rise up and call 

her blessed." 

Mrs, Emerson was in every way a helpmeet to her hus- 
band. His success in life was all the more assured by 
reason of the aid and encouragement his wife invariably 
gave him. 



300 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Squire Emerson during his many years of life had been 
personally identified with nearly every interest belonging 
to Candia. He had filled the offices of selectman, town 
clerk, town treasurer, and in 1836 and 1837 he was re- 
presentative to the state legislature, and later on he was 
state senator from his senatorial district. With the late 
Hon. Amos Tuck, he had much to do with the organiza- 
tion of the republican party. He was at one time captain 
of the Candia Light Infantry, and afterward the major 
and lieutenant-colonel of the Seventeenth Regiment. But 
his long official life is now a matter of public record, 
so I need not delay in writing of it at length. Suffice it 
to say, that in the field of politics his keen insight and 
ability were recognized by his party, and from it he re- 
ceived many an honor. 

It is of his individual, private life that I more partic- 
ularly desire to write. 

In the first place, the Hon. Abraham Emerson was a 
good neighbor. It was always a pleasure to me, when a 
boy, to have him and his wife come to my home to spend 
the evening with father and mother. Then the Squire 
and father would sit before the open fireplace all ablaze, 
and discuss with a good deal of earnestness politics, and 
not infrequently would they have it out on infant baptism. 
Not always agreeing, yet their talk would always end in 
the best of good-nature, while the apples and the mug of 
cider were enjoyed by them mutually together. Mean- 
while Mrs. Emerson and mother would talk of things 
more domestic, at the same time going on with their 
knitting, without dropping a single stitch. Squire Emer- 
son was in every instance deeply and actively interested 
in everything that pertained to the education of the chil- 




ABRAHAM EMERSON 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 301 

dren. He took a personal pride in the school in district 
No. 4. He never lost track of its pupils and teachers. 
To him district No. 4 was the banner district, and its 
school the banner school. All credit to you, Squire Em- 
erson, in letting your educational charity or love begin at 
home. 

For years Squire Emerson, as was Mrs. Emerson, was an 
active member of the Congregational Church on the Hill. 
Thoroughly orthodox his life long, yet ever eager to seize 
upon any new and reasonable phase of religious truth, 
the Hon. Abraham Emerson did not stand still in the 
religious world. He moved therein — and he always 
moved onward and upward. He never hesitated to learn 
more of God and his truth, tt was my privilege on 
several occasions during his later life, to converse with 
him on religious subjects. The last of these occasions 
came on one of the most delightful days of all the summer 
time, when under the pleasant shade of one of the trees 
his own hand had planted, he and I discussed the " here " 
and the " hereafter." I well remember how he at that 
last interview lovingly spoke of his deceased wife. Never 
shall I forget how he said to me with his face all aglow 
with an inexpressible happiness, that it was only a few 
da3^s before that his wife came to him and gave him in 
person words of love and good cheer. And then he added, 
" Wilson, I felt her real presence. I heard again her 
voice, and felt again the touch of her hand." And as he 
continued, he said, " I have spoken of this sweet experi- 
ence of mine hardly to any one save you ; for had I, they 
would have claimed 1 was seriously at fault in my reason- 
ins:. Nevertheless," said he, " I am convinced that the 
two worlds lie side by side, and that we may have direct 



302 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

communication with those on the other shore." Squire 
Emerson, though belonging to a former generation, was 
well up, in his religious growth and experience, with the 
more liberal thought of to-day. As the years came to him, 
his search for truth in every department of intellectual 
and religious thought became all the more eager and far- 
reaching. With his ninety years of work and study, he 
had largely outgrown the Westminster Catechism, and the 
so-called Creed. It was there, under the grateful shade 
of the apple-tree on that pleasant summer afternoon, that 
he saw with a clearer vision " things new and old." The 
heaven of heavens had been let down to him, and he 
walked therein with her who for so many years had made 
life a constant joy to him here on earth. 

Squire Emerson's heaven began here on earth. He 
did n't have to wait until death overtook him before he 
entered therein. The gates of pearl were open to him 
while here in the body, so that he had frequent glimpses 
of what lies " beyond." I thus write a good deal in detail 
of the religious growth and experience of Abraham Em- 
erson, because I am of the opinion that he had talked 
with but few so freely concerning his later views of a 
personal, vital religion, as he had with me. 

I have given prominent place to this happy reunion of 
Mr. and Mrs. Emerson as he so graphically and touch- 
ingly described it to me, as indicating his belief that 
heaven is here and now, and that those on the other side 
of the " divide " are with us still. 

Those last informal interviews had with Squire Emer- 
son are now a pleasant memory to me. I am sure that 
Abraham Emerson, right in heaven as he is, still has a 
loving thought of Candia, and particularly of school dis- 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 303 

trict No. 4, and I am equally sure that Mrs. Emerson is 
close by his side, sharing with him his reminiscent mood, 
both singing with the poet, " Behold our home," our good 
old home in Candia. 



LI 



Had a vote been taken years ago for one of the most 
amiable men in Candia, there is little question that the 
large majority of ballots would have been cast for the late 
Deacon Francis Patten. 

It is possible that during his life he may, at times, have 
gotten out of patience, and so become a bit vexed ; but I 
never saw him when he seemed to be in the least way 
disturbed either in temper or mind. Deacon Patten took 
life as it came, not surprised that things should not have 
been otherwise than they were. He had none of that fret 
and worry in his make-up that will eventually wear the 
life out of any man. He never looked on the cloudy side 
of anything. His sun was always shining, so he had an 
unobscured vision of whatever was best. His " good- 
morning " was uniformly radiant with the richest promise 
of the day, and his " good-night " was the prophecy of a 
better morrow. And his first wife was much like him in 
that happy temperament which makes the best of every- 
thing. 

Deacon Patten, so far as I remember, was never in a 
hurry. He took time to do things. Eminently social in 
his nature, he was one of the most neighborly of men. 
The first penny I ever earned outside of home, I earned 
by cutting turnip-tops for the good deacon. It was on a 
grim afternoon in late November that he said to me when 
all his turnips were housed, " Wilson, you come up after 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 305 

supper, and I '11 settle with you for the nineteen bushels 
of turnips you have cut." The price i)er bushel for cutting 
was a penny, so there were due me nineteen pennies. I 
felt myself a man of affairs when on my way to the dea- 
con's house that evening, sixty years ago at least, to 
receive those nineteen cents, and I still remember that 
when the deacon paid me, he said, " Wilson, you have 
done your work well." Deacon Patten never forgot to 
give a word of encouragement to the boys. He was just 
the opposite in disposition to Mr. William Robie, with 
whom he had his home when a boy. " Old Uncle Bill 
Robie " was the name that attached itself to Mr. Robie, 
and by it we boys and girls meant no disrespect. In 
those days nearly all the older men in Candia were spoken 
of in the most familiar way, a way which really was ex- 
pressive of respect and love, however much it might sound 
to the contrary. Well, Uncle Bill was made on a ner- 
vous, impetuous plan, with a heart full of all goodness 
and kindness, yet in one of his impulsive moments he 
would break forth into exclamations which would quite 
startle the young folks. It was on an evening when the 
late Charles Robie, Albert, Alanson, and myself were 
amusing ourselves by taking some of those old boards that 
lay out in front of Deacon Patten's cooper shop, and rais- 
ing them high in air and climbing a little way up them ; 
we would bang them to the ground, thus making a report 
like a small army of musketry. I remember we were hav- 
ing lots of fun one day, when, all of a sudden, Mr. Robie 
made his appearance and exclaimed, " What are you doing 
here, you little Satans ! " 

" What," said I to myself, " a church member, ' in good 
and regular standing,' and using such an awfully wicked 



306 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

word ! " Well, we boys did n't stop to discuss the matter, 
but ran for home, leaving the boards in the road. 

But after all, Mr. Robie had a heart generous in its 
feeling for others. Still he would occasionally sputter and 
say things in his own way without asking anybody's par- 
don for it. Now Deacon Patten was just the opposite. It 
was always a delight to go up to his cooper-shop, and 
listen to the music he made while driving hoops on the 
barrels he was to take to Newburyport. 

It is said that Deacon Patten in his early life was one 
of the most popular schoolteachers who went out at that 
time from Candia, and I can well understand how all this 
was. Naturally a lover of children, he entered heartily 
into their work and into their play. He lived his life with 
them, so the boys and girls came to regard him as one of 
their number. 

It was at one of those old-time huskings in my neigh- 
borhood that Deacon Patten amused and interested us 
all, by relating some of his experiences as a schoolmaster 
in Danville. Among other things, he told us of a dance 
in which he took part while teaching in Danville. I sup- 
pose they must have been wanting a sufficient number of 
lady partners to go round, as the deacon robed himself in 
his nightgown, and acted the part of a graceful, attractive 
girl, who well understood the terpsichorean art. It does 
me a real good to know how such an excellent man as was 
the deacon touched life in its innocent amusements and 
enjoyed them. 

Deacon Patten was much beloved by his townspeople, 
and he had received from them nearly every official posi- 
tion within their gift. 

In chapter II, I referred to the deacon as one who 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 307 

always took an active part in those Saturday evening 
prayer-meetings in his neighborhood. lie was for nearly 
seventy years a member of the Congregational Church on 
the Hill, and always one of the foremost in its support. 

Mrs. Patten, too, was a devoted member of the Hill 
church. She was a woman loving and lovable in all her 
ways, and always true and loyal to her home. Mrs. Patten 
died when she was but little more than forty years of age. 
Her funeral was held in the Congregational Church either 
in the winter of 1852 or 1853, I have forgotten which. 
Never shall I forget, however, the tender pathos with 
which the Rev. Mr. Herrick read alongside her casket 
the hymn beginning — 

" Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, 
From which none ever wake to weep." 

Deacon and Mrs. Patten are of blessed memory. 

Then there is the late Deacon Coffin M. French, a man 
of sterling worth, dignified in all his bearing, and yet a 
man who enjoyed a joke, as I have said in a previous let- 
ter. He had at times a dry, humorous way of putting 
things. His jocular sayings often received emphasis from 
his tone and manner of expressing them. 

It was on a summer day, during the later years of his 
life, that I met him while Frank and George Henry were 
at home on their vacation, when I said, " Deacon French, 
it is pleasant for you to have your children come home to 
visit you," when he replied, with a twinkle in his eye, 
"Yes, we love to have them visit us occasionally,'' giving 
emphasis to the word "occasionally." In no other way 
could Deacon French have better expressed his delight- 
ful i^leasure in having his children with him. He not 



308 KEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

infrequently expressed himself in opposites, which is one 
of the strongest ways in pointing a fact directly contrary 
to the language used. Were I to live a thousand years 
I should not forget that good, honest old family horse the 
deacon used to drive to church. Why, those deep-toned 
sleigh-bells I can hear now ; and I can see at this moment 
how gracefully the deacon's whip-lash always hung over 
his right shoulder as he made his way to church. 

Deacon French led an industrious, busy life, filling 
many a public position. For years he was a deacon in the 
Congregational Church, and for some years he was a 
member of the board of selectmen, and at one time was 
colonel of the 17th New Hampshire regiment. Colonel 
French made a striking and pleasing figure on horseback. 
His stately and well-proportioned figure was the observed 
of all observers on a muster-day. 

In linear measurement he and Mrs. French presented a 
remarkable contrast, Mrs. French hardly reaching to the 
shoulder of her six-feet-or-more husband ; but, all the 
same, they were well mated, and together they made a 
pronounced success of life. 

What a delight it would have been to us boys and girls 
of so many years ago, could the fathers and mothers have 
lived on with us ! But with Zechariah we are compelled 
to ask, " Your fathers, where are they ? and the prophets, 
do they live forever ? " 




A. J. PITMAN M.D. 



Lll 



As I was on my way down town this morning I heard 
the clear, ringing echo of a fishman's tin horn, and it re- 
minded me so much of that trumpet-call to dinner wliich 
Mrs. William Robie used to send out on the still summer 
air, that I must write of her. 

Mrs. Robie, as I remember her, was one of the most 
genial of women. Serene and calm at all times, she moved 
in and about her home as peacefully as the sea, undis- 
turbed in its quiet, lies in the sunshine of a summer day. 
She was nearly or quite the opposite of her husband, AVil- 
liam Robie, in temperament. Each was a wise and helpful 
modification of the other, so that their two lives united 
were more than the double of each one alone and apart 
by itself. 

But that trumpet-call I now have in mind. I can see 
Mrs. Robie at this writing standing in the doorway of the 
ell part of her house with trumpet in hand ready to send 
out her musical invitation to dinner. I say " nmsical in- 
vitation," for no one could blow a dinner trumpet in such 
rhythmical swells as did she. There was not one discord- 
ant note in all her call, and then so, prolonged was that 
call ! She began her trumpet, " Come ye to dinner," on a 
low key and then ran through the musical scale both in 
its ascending and descending notes, and all, be it known, 
with one long-drawn-out breath. Mrs. Robie must have 
more than once said to herself, " For if the trumpet give 



310 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself," not " to 
the battle," but " for dinner ? " At any rate, she blew one 
long, continuous blast, until the echo of her trumpet went 
ringing throughout my home neighborhood. The boys 
and girls of my time will never forget the trumpet-call 
of Mrs. Robie. Nothing could surpass it, unless it be that 
of Gabriel himself. When a boy I was frequently sent to 
Mrs. Kobie's house on some errand, and I always loved 
to go, because she was so pleasant an old lady to meet. 
Her face always gave assurance of a cordial welcome. 

In those days, the neighbors often went borrowing of 
each other. It is n't true that " he who goes a-borrowing 
goes a-sorrowing." On the contrary, it is true that a 
mutual dependence between neighbors is a bond of union. 
" I neither borrow nor lend " is the saying of that supreme 
selfishness which claims all, while giving nothing in return. 
The scriptural rendering has it, '' Give to him that asketh 
thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not 
thou away." There is any amount of good fellowship in 
borrowing. To go to your neighbor for coffee enough for 
breakfast is an assurance of good-will. It is an unfortu- 
nate happening in these later years that men and women 
have become so independent of each other that they pride 
themselves in being able to get along without the help of 
one another, when as a matter of fact it takes but little 
to knock the props from under the best of us. Get a man 
on his back, then he '11 readily come to terms. But so 
long as he is safely, as he thinks, on his feet, he will sub- 
stantially declare that he is running the whole business. 

It is a pleasant memory to me that the neighbors in 
Candia fifty years ago were not only willing to borrow and 
lend, but that they were oftentimes compelled to do so. We 




GEORGE B. BROWN 



i 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 311 

are only rich in each other, while we are poor indeed ai)ait 
from each other. Well, Mrs. Robie was invariably glad 
to lend, and whenever you asked her for a cupful of meal, 
she was sure to give you double that measure. The dear 
old woman had a great big heart full of kindness and love 
for others. I can see her now seated in her comfortal)le 
rocking-chair, in the room back of her sitting-room, with 
that old-fashioned tall eight-day clock in the further corner 
of the room ticking away, as it had ticked for many a year 
before, and as it now ticks in the hall of the home of Mr. 
and Mrs. A. Frank Patten. 

Mrs. R-obie, in her neatly fitting cap, made an attractive 
picture as she sat there under the shadow of that grand 
old sentinel of time. 

Another old lady in my neighborhood in the early forties 
of the past century was Aunt Dearborn, wife of Uncle 
Samuel Dearborn. " Uncle Sam " was a half-brother of 
my father, so that I knew him and Aunt Dearborn in my 
early boyhood as belonging to the Palmer family. Aunt 
Dearborn was one of the fairest, prettiest old ladies I ever 
met. She had a face of remarkable composure and beauty, 
and her presence was always restful. When teaching school 
in Needham, Mass., during the winter vacations of my col- 
lege life, I had as chairman of my school committee the 
late Rev. Daniel Kimball, a Unitarian clergyman, and a 
graduate of Harvard College. Mr. Kimball in early life 
became acquainted with Aunt Dearborn, who was then a 
Miss Dodge, in Bradford, Mass., and I distinctly remember 
how he told me at one time that he came dangerously near 
falling desperately in love with her. Mr. Kimball described 
Miss Dodge as a young lady of unusual charm and grace, 
and she retained much of that charm and grace of her youth 



312 EEMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

through all the later years of her life. Talk as one may 
of the pretty girl in her teens, yet I know of no beauty so 
attractive and charming as the beauty and charm of a de- 
lightful old lady. The ripening years always bring a richer 
and fuller expression of that richer and fuller life which 
belongs to old age alone. Mrs. William Robie and Aunt 
Dearborn were my ideal of a life made peacefully radiant 
with increasing years. 



LIII 

As I write of the older people of Candia, 1113^ father and 
mother come to me with all the vividness of the earlier 
years. Blessed be their memory forevermore ! Father 
was of a nervous, impulsive temperament, one who did 
things in a hurry. In all his farm work, his ambition was 
to keep a little ahead of his neighbors. He was usually 
the first in his neighborhood to begin his haying, and 
it was the same with his fall and winter's work. He was 
the first to cut the bushes in the early autumn, and he be- 
gan on his woodpile in the winter time always in advance 
of others. A man of decided opinion of men and things, 
he held to his own views with a tenacious grip, and yet he 
was uniformly ready to own up, and to give up whenever 
he was convinced that he was wrong. But he must first 
be thoroughly convinced. The positive side of his nature 
is best seen in what he once told me of his conversion, 
when he was in the early twenties. The story substan- 
tially is the following: At a time when there was no 
unusual religious interest in Candia, he became deeply 
convicted of sin, and this personal conviction so fastened 
itself upon him that on a certain Sunday night, when 
living on the place known as the Nathaniel Hall place, he 
arose at the dead hour of midnight and made his way 
to the Rev. Mr. Remington's house, and rung the good 
pastor up from sleep. Mr. Remington readily answered 
father's call, and met him in his study. There father 



314 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

made known to Mr. Remington his intense and anxious 
interest in a personal salvation that should save him from 
his sins. There, at that lone hour of the night, Mr. Rem- 
ington and father talked and prayed together until nearly 
the break of day, when father returned to his home with 
hosannas and hallelujahs upon his lips. His conversion 
was something after the manner of Paul. I mention this 
incident in father's life to show all the more clearly his 
positive, impulsive make-up. Father threw himself unre- 
servedly into everything of especial interest to him. In 
his religion and in his politics he was a radical from the 
very necessity of his nature. Honest in all things, he 
stated his proposition for all there was in it. A Calvinist 
Baptist as he was, he looked upon infant baptism as a 
good deal of a farce. 

The scriptural reading, " And it came to pass in those 
days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was 
baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up 
out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the 
spirit like a dove descending upon him " was to father 
sufficient proof that Christ forever set his approbation and 
seal upon immersion as the only form of scriptural bap- 
tism. 

It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion of the 
various forms of baptism ; my only thought is, to show 
how absolutely positive father was in all his belief. He 
had no mental reservations either in his religious or polit- 
ical creed. He believed as one not doubting. 

Father was of an eminently social nature, and always 
ready for a chat. Fond of wife and children, his ho-me 
was to him the dearest spot on earth. He believed in his 
boys and girls and never doubted their ability to do things. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 315 

That father is to be pitied who does not have an unshaken 
faith in his children. 

Mother was the happy complement of father. Iler pa- 
tient and less impulsive way was oftentimes a salutary 
modification of father's more strenuous manner in thou^-ht 
and action. 

Mother ! The dear, loving woman with her eleven chil- 
dren was and is to me and to all her children everythin"-. 
that glorifies and makes sacred all womanhood and all 
motherhood. 

Her every household duty became to her a joy, because 
therein she was doing for her husband and for her children. 

Father and mother lived their simple, unpretentious life 
in an atmosphere permeated and made fragrant by every 
domestic virtue ; and this brings me to the home life of 
Candia as it was a half -century ago. Candia, in the life 
of the generation gone before, was signally blessed in her 
homes. 

It would have been difficult to have found, fifty years 
ago, in the good old town of which I write, a home around 
the door of which the children in generous numbers did 
not have their sports. I speak of the children first, because 
in the very nature of things there can be no real home 
without the children. God, when he instituted the home, 
planned for the coming of the boys and girls. Why, a 
baby in the house is God's own certificate of marriage. 

Every mother is a Mary, and all motherhood is closely 
allied to divinity. Oh, those good old homes, as I remem- 
ber them, were made delightfully happy through the com- 
ing of the children ! In those earlier days Candia's thirteen 
or fourteen schoolhouses were well filled with pupils of 
infant years. To maintain, in the years way back, the 



316 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

district school, the school committee were not compelled to 
" rob Peter to pay Paul." Then no one district was bereft 
of its children that there might be a working quorum of 
boys and girls in an adjoining district. 

It is nothing other than a calamity that family life has, 
in so many instances, rendered itself childless. God pity 
the American people, not for its mistakes, but for its 
nameless sins. 

What untold wealth the fathers and mothers of the 
generations of years agone had in their children ! What 
if they were not rich in gold and in silver and in lands, 
so long as they were in possession, by a divine inheritance, 
of those jewels of which the Spartan mother so proudly 
boasted ! 

Well, did n't we boys and girls of my age have a jolly, 
happy time as children in our respective homes ! And 
what a group of us when all counted, and how proud the 
dear old fathers and mothers were of us ! How gladly 
did they work on, day after day, singing all the while, 
that they might feed and clothe us and send us to school ! 
And how we children, when grown to any size, joined 
hands with the parents in making a livelihood for the 
family ! How happy we all were in contributing to the 
common need ! 

I am sure there is not a Candia man or woman now 
fifty and sixty years of age, resident of the town, or whose 
home is more or less remote, who will not declare with 
loving emphasis that whatever success in life has come to 
him or her is largely due to the parents whose highest 
ambition was to be true to themselves and to the state by 
adding thereto men and women who would promote the 
common good. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 317 

The Psalmist had the public interest in view whon lie 
wrote, "Thy children shall be like olive plants round 
about thy table." 

I speak from a full heart when I write of the children 
— for my home is with a daughter with her seven bright, 
interesting boys and girls — six here, and one "up there." 
What a delight they are to me, as well as to their father 
and mother ! How they renew my youth and make me a 
child again ! On every day of the week, and during every 
week in the month, and through every month of the year, 
" The Children's Hour " comes to me ; and so it is that I 
sing with Longfellow : — 

" Between the dark and the daylight, 

When the night is beginning to lower, 

Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 

That is known as the children's hour. 

" I hear in the chamber above me 
The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened, 
And voices soft and sweet. 

" From my study I see in the lamplight, 
Descending the broad hall stair, 
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 
And Edith with golden hair. 

" A whisper, and then a silence : 
Yet I know by their merry eyes 
They are plotting and planning together 
To take me by surprise. 

" A sudden rush from the stairway, 
A sudden raid from the hall ! 
By three doors left unguarded 
They enter my castle wall ! 



318 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

" They climb up into my turret 

O'er the arms and back of my chair ; 
If I try to escape, they surround me ; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

" They almost devour me with kisses, 
Their arms about me entwine. 
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine ! 

" Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, 
Because you have scaled the wall. 
Such an old moustache as I am 
Is not a match for you all ! 

" I have you fast in my fortress. 
And will not let you depart. 
But put you down into the dungeon 
In the round-tower of my heart. 

" And there will I keep you forever, 
Yes, forever and a day, 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 
And moulder in dust away ! " 



God bless the children f orevermore ; and may He soon '^ 

restore to every nook and corner throughout our broad i 

land that old-fashioned home life in which our fathers i 

and mothers so greatly rejoiced ! ^ 




ALFRED BROWN 



LIV 

An intimate friend of my father was the late Gihnan 
Richardson. 

Oilman Richardson was one of the sunniest of men. 
If a cloud ever crossed his pathway, but few knew it. 
Socially, he was one of the most attractive of his kind. 
However busy he might be, he was always ready for a 
talk, and he had that rare faculty in conversation of inter- 
esting all classes. I delighted, when a boy, to listen to 
Captain Richardson's happy flow of language. A born 
democrat, he and father held many a political love-feast. 

At an early age Grilman Richardson learned the tanning, 
currying, and shoemaking trades of the Rev. Moses Bean, 
who at one time was the pastor of the church in Candia 
Village. 

In 1812 he was drafted for the war. He was notified 
by Peter Eaton at 10 o'clock A. M. to appear at Portsmouth 
the following morning at sunrise, armed and equipped. 

When he received his notification he was working at his 
bench. Mr. Richardson lost no time in throwing off his 
leather apron, and at the same time exclaiming " I am 
ready." His mother furnished him an old gun and blanket, 
and thus armed he walked to Portsmouth, arriving there 
just as the sun was coming up. 

Returning from the war, he bought a place in the vil- 
lage, which is now the parsonage of the Baptist church, 
and there resided until 1828, when he purchased the Bean 



320 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

farm, now owned by Merrill Johnson. He there made his 
home until the time of his death, in 1869. He was a mem- 
ber of the state legislature in 1838 and 1839. He was a 
lover of military life and at one time was captain of the 
artillery company. 

Captain Richardson had a busy life. He was in every 
way a most companionable man. He was particularly fond 
of the young, and a great lover of children, and they of 
him. He had one of the happiest of homes, and it was 
always a pleasure to visit it. Captain Gilman Richardson 
was a man of many sterling qualities, while Mrs. Richard- 
son as a wife and mother made her home radiant with her 
loving domesticity. 

Then there was the late John Cate, who married the 
eldest daughter of Captain Richardson. Mr. Cate was the 
very soul of good-nature and good fellowship. Always 
happy, he made others happy. Mr. Cate was a man of 
affairs. He was for several years in the shoe business. He 
represented Candia three years in the state legislature. 
John W. Cate was always doing something. He had the 
knack of creating business, and he did much for the labor 
interest of Candia. A democrat to the backbone, he and 
his father-in-law, Captain Richardson, never had occasion 
to disagree politically, and as a matter of fact they were 
never known to disagree upon any vital subject. In the 
third generation, reckoning from Captain Richardson, 
there was the late John D. Philbrick, who married Mr. 
Cate's only daughter, Emma Cate. 

Mr. Philbrick at the time of his death was sub-master 
of the Thomas N. Hart school in Boston. 

One of the Boston papers had the following to say of 
Mr. Philbrick at the time of his death : — 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 321 

"Mr. John Dudley Philbrick, sub-master of the Thomas 
N. Hart School, died at his home, 23 Dakota Street, Dor- 
chester, this morning at three o'clock, after an ilhu'ss of 
ten days, with pneumonia. The sad news of his deatli 
was received at the Hart School just as they assembled at 
nine o'clock, and sadness and deep grief have fallen heav- 
ily upon pupils and teachers, by whom he was universally 
loved and respected. His influence for good and his great 
ability as an educator of boys was a power and fully ap- 
preciated in this community, where he will long be mourned 
by old and young. 

" He came to the Hart School in 1891, and taught with 
the late lamented Alonzo G. Ham until the latter's death 
in the summer of 1895, when he received the appointment 
of sub-master, and John F. D wight was promoted to the 
place left vacant by the death of Mr. Ham. For some 
thirteen years he was principal of the Bigelow Evening 
School, and wielded the same strong power and influence 
over the pupils, men and women, boys and girls, who 
nightly congregated for improvement and study. His 
happy disposition and word of encouragement has been 
the means of uplifting many a discouraged person and 
has proved an incentive for higher and nobler effort. 

"He was born in Candia, N. H., in 18G2, the son of 
the late J. H. Philbrick. He was prepared for college at 
Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., and was graduated at 
Dartmouth College in 1885. He was a member of Can- 
dia Lodge of Masons, the Colonial Club of Dorchester, 
and the Puritan Canoe Club of South Boston. Besides 
a widow and son, he leaves a sister and a brother." 

Mr. Philbrick was an intense lover of Candia. His 
summer residence there was his Eden on earth. It was 



322 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

there that he was seen at his best. He died mourned by 
a host of friends. 

Another Candia boy is the Rev. Charles L. Hubbard, 
of West Boxford, Mass. Mr. Hubbard, it will be remem- 
bered, is the son of the late Joshua P. Hubbard. His pre- 
paratory studies for college were had in the Candia High 
School, and at Pembroke Academy and Kimball Union 
Academy. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1865. 

In 1862 and 1863 he was a member of the 12th Ver- 
mont Infantry, Stannard's Brigade. Mr. Hubbard studied 
theology at the seminary in Andover, Mass., graduating 
therefrom in 1868. For ten years he was pastor of the 
Congregational church in Merrimack, and was chaplain 
of the New Hampshire state legislature in 1872 and 1873. 
For twenty-six years he has been pastor of the Congrega- 
tional church at West Boxford, Mass., the pastorate of 
which he still holds. Mr. Hubbard visited Europe in 
1891 and in 1893, and again in 1905. He has been, his 
life long, a close student not alone of books, but of men. 
In his preaching he has met the world as it is. He lives 
the life that he preaches, so that his pulpit instructions 
are emphasized by him in all his daily walk. 

It was in the summer of 1901 that I had the pleasure of 
meeting Mr. Hubbard at the meeting of the Candia Club 
in the home town, when I was much interested in what 
he said in his brief talk to the club, and equally interested 
in his happy manner of saying it. 

Mr. Hubbard, with his wife and four children, affords 
the most ample testimony that he believes in the home 
and in the children. The Rev. Charles L. Hubbard is 
among the foremost of the Candia boys, and the love he 
bears his native town increases as the years go on. 



LV 



That Candia has in her clear, bracing atmosphere, and 
in her living waters, all the elements of health and long 
life is seen in the number of her aged people. I now have 
in mind Mrs. Mary S. Russell, who celebrated the 94th 
anniversary of her birthday on the 13th of December, 
1903. Mrs. Russell, or " Aunt Mary " as she is familiarly 
and lovingly known, is the daughter of Benjamin Smith 
and the last of a generous number of brothers and sisters. 
Capt. John Smith and True Smith were her brothers. 
She was a twin sister of Mrs. Jessie R. Towle, who died 
some years ago. Mrs. Russell is a pensioner of the War 
of 1812. She has been twice married, and now lives with 
her son Charles Weeks. She is the mother of the Rev. 
Henry S. Kimball of Troy, New Hampshire. Mrs. Russell, 
with her many years upon her, still lives in that atmo- 
sphere of sweet contentment where the years hardly count. 
Retaining all her mental faculties, she enters with a good 
deal of zest into whatever pleases those much younger 
than herself. Physically, she is well preserved, so much 
so that she is able to do for herself. She wants no ser- 
vant chasing in her steps to wait upon her. She enjoys 
life to the full, all the while thanking God for it. 

I do not remember of having met Mrs. Russell but once 
during all these years, and this meeting was under sur- 
roundings so impressive that I have never forgotten her. 

It was somewhere in the later forties of the century gone 



324 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

by, during that wonderful revival in Candia, that I was 
sent on an errand to Deacon Francis Patten's home. At 
that time it was not thought rude or out of place for one 
to make his way into a neighbor's house without rapping 
or ringing the door-bell, so I, as was the custom, found 
my way into Mrs. Patten's dining-room (the first Mrs. 
Patten) without any preliminaries, and there Mrs. Patten 
and Mrs. Pussell, then Mary Smith, were kneeling in 
prayer. The scene so impressed me that I stood there 
with uncovered head, until the amen had been said. I 
have not a question that the scriptural saying, " Where 
two or three are gathered together in my name, there will 
I be in the midst of them, and that to bless," found veri- 
fication with Mrs. Patten and Mary Smith in that little 
prayer-meeting all by themselves. 

I never shall forget that impressive moment, as I stood 
there in the presence of two of God's ministering servants 
pleading for help and divine guidance. 

As might be expected, Mrs. Russell with her 94 years 
is rich in her memories of the past, and I am told by those 
who know, that it is altogether delightful as well as in- 
structive to listen to her story of the years gone by. 

Then there was Mrs. Thomas Bean, so recently de- 
ceased, who lived to be something more than ninety years 
of age. It would require more than the fingers on both 
hands to count the nonagenarians who have been and are 
of Candia. The secret of it all is, there is something in 
the physical make-up of the town that not only begets 
life, but which prolongs it as well. Nowhere else are the 
skies so blue, and the atmosphere so genial and inviting, 
and where the birds sing so sweetly, as in Candia — so, at 
least, it seems to me. There the invitation is not only to 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 325 

live, but to live on, so that now that Candia man or woman 
at seventy years of age is substantially in tlic heyday of 
youth. And this is just as it should be. Plautus was 
wrong when he wrote, " Quem Di diligunt, adolescens 
moritur," — at any rate, the saying is not true of Charm- 
ingfare. The old people who have lived their lives in 
Candia, and those who are still holding on to their earthly 
house with a good, sensible grip, form the background to 
the picture I am attempting to paint through these remi- 
niscent chapters. God never intended that the good should 
die young, so that the years indefinitely multiplied are 
always in evidence, that his purpose from the beginning, 
so far as human life is concerned, is being effected by 
those men and women who abide in this earthly house to 
the latest possible moment. In the midst of life death is 
not to come into the discussion. To live on and on is the 
privilege and duty of every sound mind in a sound body. 
It can be said of every woman in the fullness and wealth 
of her many years, that " Age cannot wither her nor cus- 
tom stale her infinite variety," and the same may be said 
of every man whose life is lived in harmony with the 
eternal plan. God bless the old people of Candia, and 
may he keep them safely on " this side " for many a year 
to come I Let us get back to the younger folks for a little. 
There is Leonard Dearborn, of East Candia, who has led 
and is still leading a busy life. For most of the time of 
late, he and Mrs. Dearborn have been with their boys in 
Seattle. The older Dearborns always had the knack of 
making a dollar, and the later generations of the same 
family name are in possession of that business faculty 
which recognizes at first sight where lie the main chances 
for success. So it is that Leonard Dearborn and his 



326 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

family made their way west when the gold was to be found 
in its native bed. Leonard Dearborn in all his wander- 
ings has never for a moment forgotten his home town. 
His interest in her and for her has manifested itself in 
many ways. 

Another Candia boy is Cotton Ward Beane, whose home 
has been in New York City for the past half -century and 
more. How well I remember him as a boy ! I can see him 
now of a Sunday, as vividly as I did so many years ago, when 
living on the Langford Road, making his way to church 
on the hill. By the way I prefer the " Langford Road " 
rather than " East Candia," for the former calling carries 
with it a personality, while the latter simply indicates a 
point of the compass. Why not say the " Langford Road " 
and have done with " East Candia " ? But to return to 
Cotton Ward Beane. Cotton in early life evinced a lik- 
ing for business. While in his teens, he was studying 
how he might make an honest dollar ; so it is not surpris- 
ing that at an early age he made his way to New York 
City, where he might find more ample room for his young 
enterprising, pushing life. When Mr. Beane first went to 
what is now the greater New York, all was waste land be- 
yond 14th Street. He has seen, since his residence in the 
metropolis, the city so reach out on all sides that it now 
numbers nearly four millions of people. Mr. Beane has 
grown with the city. A man of rare intelligence and 
quick to take in all that is latest and best, he is rightly 
accounted one of the foremost citizens of his adopted city. 
It was my privilege for my nearly twenty years of life in 
the suburbs of New York to see much of Mr. Beane, his 
office being with that of Luther W. Emerson, so that upon 
my frequent calls at their office we three discussed Candia 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 327 

for aU she 's worth, and in every instance in summln<^^ up 
our discussion, we voted her the affirmative side of the 
question. 

Mr. Beane is one of those who well understand how to 
receive his friends. With a courtesy that never falls him, 
he emphasizes his welcome to any and all who may pull 
his latch-string. 

All the Candia Beanes had and have a certain suavity 
of manner which was and is entirely pleasing, and which 
is peculiarly their own. There was Dudley Beane, who 
could not be surpassed in all that constitutes grace and 
elegance in diction and manner of expression, — and it was 
much the same with his brothers and sisters. 

It was always a pleasure for me to meet Dudley Beane, 
he had so many pleasant things to say, and he said them 
in the pleasantest sort of way. 

Well, Cotton Ward Beane is much after the same man- 
ner of man. He just knows how to make things agreeable 
and pleasant for you, and he does it every time. Mr. Beane 
is a man of affairs, and has had a wide and successful ex- 
perience with the business world. During all these years 
away from Candia he has never forgotten her, and when- 
ever he has revisited the town, he has invariably been de- 
lighted to tell us boys of the old roads he walked, of the 
hills he climbed, and of the friends he met, and it has been 
a delight to listen to his story of the old camping-ground. 
Cotton Ward Beane is pleasantly remembered by the older 
people of Candia. 



LVI 

I HAVE just come from Candia, where I have taken in the 
earlier lessons of my life. We all need our Jerusalem 
where we may tarry for a brief while, that we may have 
holy hands laid upon us and receive anew of the Spirit. 

I always delight to turn my face toward the good old 
town. To meet again the old friends and to give them cor- 
dial greeting is to renew one's youth. 

There is the rarest pleasure in going down to the Can- 
dia post-office, and Charles Turner's store, and watch the 
townspeople as they come for their mail and their groceries. 
Here comes the staid Manson Brickett, and though an 
Auburn man, his post-office address is Candia. Seldom or 
never do I fail to meet Manson at the store — and the 
meeting does me good, for Mr. Brickett is never in a hurry ; 
he takes the world as it comes. Mr. Brickett is one of those 
substantial men upon whom you can rely in every instance. 
With a vein of humor in his make-up, he readily sees the 
funny side of things. And then at the post-office in the 
early morning and in the eventime, one will usually find 
men and women from nearly every locality of the town, 
when a social chat is had in a sort of gossipy, interesting 
way. The subject under discussion may be the severity of 
the winter, or the spring's work so near at hand, or what 
the hay crop is likely to be, or it may be the talk will take 
in the political outlook ; while the women will chat of the 
home and how the children come on at school, or what was 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 329 

said and done at the last meeting of the sewing-circle, or 
what an interesting sermon the minister had on the pre- 
ceding Sunday. Whatever the conversation, oik; may l)e 
sure that the brief talk at the post-office is an intelligent 
interchange of views upon men and things. There is no 
newsier spot in all the world than that found at the coun- 
try post-office and at the country store, and Candia is no 
exception to this general rule. AVhen in Candia, I seldom 
or never fail to attend church on the Hill. I still love to 
stand on the stone steps of the church of a Sunday morn- 
ing and watch the coming of the few I know. Then it is 
that my memory stretches back to those earlier days when 
one would see, as regularly as the Sunday came, Mr. and 
Mrs* Ezekiel Lane and their children, Ilattie N. Lane, 
Mary B. Lane, John Lane, Ruth Lane, Edward Lane; 
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Rowe, Sarah Jane Rowe, Emiline 
Rowe, Freeman Rowe; Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Burj^ee ; 
Rinaldo Tilton ; Mr. and Mrs. Moses Rowe and the chil- 
dren, Frank Rowe, Charles Rowe, and an older brother with 
the two sisters ; Captain John Rowe and his family ; Major 
Brown with his wife and four attractive daughters ; Mr. 
Hobbs, on Walnut Hill, with his family ; John Lane, Esq., 
and wife, with the Lane girls, so distinguished for that 
personal charm and beauty which made them favorites 
everywhere ; Mr. Healy, the blacksmith, and Mrs. Healy, 
with the children ; Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Lane, and others 
on the North Road whose names do not occur to me. And 
then from High Street, there were always at church on a 
Sunday, Deacon John Fitts and his wife, with their chil- 
dren, James H. Fitts, J. Lane Fitts, Hannah Fitts: Mr. and 
Mrs. John Emerson, with their half do/.en or more cliildreii, 
Ann Emerson, Sarah Jane Emerson, and a younger sister, 



330 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

and John Emerson, George Emerson, and two older bro- 
thers ; Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Fitts and family ; Mr. and Mrs. 
Leonard Dearborn, with their boys ; Mr. and Mrs. True 
Eaton, with their family ; Mr. and Mrs. True French, with 
Lucinda French and her sister Alamanza ; Mr. and Mrs. 
Josiah French, and Henry T. French with his sisters Sarah 
and Julia ; Ichabod Cass and wife, with Darius, Mary, Ros- 
well, and Caroline ; Mrs. Fitts, with Isaac and Mary Fitts ; 
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Morrill, with their boys; Mr. and Mrs. 
Parker Morrill ; Deacon Langford and his wife, with their 
goodly number of children ; and Mr. and Mrs. Abraham 
Emerson, with their whole troop of children ; Deacon and 
Mrs. Francis Patten, with Keziah, Abigail, William, Frank, 
and Sarah ; Deacon Coffin M. French and wife, with John, 
Celina, Frank, and George Henry ; Jonathan Emerson, 
usually footing it all by himself alone ; Mr. and Mrs. Moses 
Patten and their children, Moses, Lizzie, and Dana ; Mr. 
Moses Emerson and his children, of whom Charles was 
the eldest ; and others who made up that goodly congrega- 
tion on the Hill fifty years ago. They were a godly com- 
pany of men and women who with an uncomplaining spirit 
made it their daily duty to live up to the terrible and now 
revolting creed of that day. Oh, you dear fathers and mo- 
thers, you have now found that God of severest justice 
whom you worshiped a half -century ago, a God of the 
most abounding love ! And how supremely delightful it 
must have been for you to meet those loving and loved 
children whom you laid away years ago, without a single 
ray of hope for their salvation, right in the Kingdom 
of Heaven singing in sweetest notes the anthems of 
the redeemed ! and what a welcome they must have given 
you as you entered through the gates into the city ! I do 




ALVIN D. DUDLEY 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 331 

so wish that the fathers and mothers couUl have lived untd 
this day, wherein God has so revealed himself as the lov- 
ing father whose delight it is to care for his children. But 
then, those dear old Christian saints have learned now, in 
a practical way, that " God is love." 

That church choir on the Hill years ago ! Who is there 
of us who does n't pleasantly remember it ? It was made 
up of Dr. Wheat, Dr. Isaiah Lane, Jonathan Brown, 
John Emerson, Jesse Fitts, Colonel Cass, Henry T. 
French, Henry Clough, the Lane and Eaton girls, and 
others whose names I do not recall. Henry T. French 
played the violin ; Jesse Fitts, the double bass viol ; Colo- 
nel Cass, the 'cello ; and Henry Clough played the 
bugle. I seem to hear, as I write, that choir of the olden 
time singing Boylston, Hamburg, China, Uxbridge, Bal- 
erma, and Old Hundred with both the spirit and the 
understanding. When Dr. Lane had pitched the tune with 
that ever-memorable tuning-fork, then all started in with 
a vim, which they kept up until the hymn had been ren- 
dered in sacred song. 

It is a good deal true of all the churches in Candia, as 
elsewhere, that they are way back in the musical part of 
their service. The several choirs have become decimated, 
and then again the old tunes and hymns have unfortu- 
nately given way to that which is more modern, and yet 
very much less effective both in the poetry and sentiment 
of thanksgiving and praise. 

I have a great admiration for that old choir of fifty 
years and more ago. It was a delight to me, when a boy, 
to turn round and face the choir during that last singing 
in the morning and in the afternoon. I am sure that 
Doctor Wheat, Doctor Lane, Jonathan Brown. Colonel 



332 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Cass, John Emerson, Jesse Fitts, Emily Lane, Abbie 
Lane, Sarah Eaton, Mary Eaton, and the other members 
of that choir are doing their part in making all Heaven 
vocal with song and praise, as they sing Coronation, Ham- 
burg, China, and Old Hundred. 

" Oh, sing to me the old songs ! " is the cry heard on all 
sides. 

It is a lamentable fact that church music has sadly 
degenerated both in its simple rendering and in its aid 
to a devout worship. 

Formerly the choir joined hands with the minister in 
the service of the hour. In these later days, especially in 
all our cities and suburban towns, church music is used as 
a sort of advertising dodge to drum up an audience. In 
the earlier days church music was an expression of simple 
thanksgiving and praise. Why should n't it be so now ? 
" Let all the people sing as unto the Lord." 



LVII 

I AM recently from the pleasant home of Jlenry T. 
French and family in Hudson, Mass. Those of my age in 
Candia will remember that Mr. French is the son of 
Josiah French, whose residence was near the Church on 
the Hill. 

Henry T. French, as we all knew him, was a pupil in 
the high school, and subsequently he attended school at 
Pembroke and Merrimack. In his early life he taught 
school in Auburn, Hampstead, Sandown, Hooksett, Aliens- 
town, Suncook ; and in Bolton, Hudson, and Berlin, in 
Massachusetts. All his life long Mr. French has l)een a 
lover and composer of music. He was a pupil for years 
under singing-master Cram, and it is safe to say that he 
was one of his brightest pupils. Mr. French has taught 
many a boy and girl in the " divine art." 

Mr. French has resided in Hudson for fifty years, where 
he has his pleasant and attractive home. Mrs. French is 
one of the most agreeable women to meet. Mr. and ^Irs. 
French have three children, — two charming daughters 
and one son, a business man, and a prominent citizen of 
Hudson. All the children are lovers of music, and sing 
with rare expression and volume of voice. The son is the 
organist in the First Congregational Church at IMaynard, 
Mass., a position he has held for nearly twenty years, 
while one of the daughters is organist in one of the lead- 
ino- churches in Worcester, and the second daughter has 



334 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

charge of the choir of the Methodist church in Leom- 
inster. 

Candia, by right, is a lover of music and poetry. Her 
picturesque surroundings beget the spirit of all poesy. 

Mr. George W. Chadwick, president of the New England 
Conservatory of Music, a man who is an acknowledged 
authority in the world of music, is a grandson of Mr. and 
Mrs. Abraham Fitts, whose home, when living, was on 
the North Road. Then there is J. H. Worthen, a brother 
to Warren A. Worthen, who has written in verse lines of 
loving tribute to the old schoolhouse on Walnut Hill, in 
which he was a pupil, and to his early home. Mr. Worthen 
was a soldier in the War of the Rebellion and bravely 
fought for the Union. He was at one time taken prisoner 
and suffered all the horrors of Andersonville. 

" Walnut Hill ! now, in my life's decline, 
I '11 once more view those splendid scenes of thine. 
Sweet, smiling spot! how pleasant to survey 
Thy lovely hills, and sun's receding ray, 
With pastures green, where, in life's early dawn, 
I loved to wander o'er thy grassy lawn." 

So sings J. H. Worthen of the old Walnut Hill school- 
house, and he sings of his paternal home with all the love 
and affection of a loving and affectionate son. 

" My childhood home ! forever dear to me, 
Thy lovely woods I now admire to see ; 
And though the time is not yet noon. 
Yet autumn's twilight will come too soon. 

" My native home ! How sadly I review ! 
Beneath thy roof my earliest breath I drew. 
Thy charming scenes — I dearly love them all; 
The creeping ivy that clambers o'er the wall, 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 335 

While on its roof, now broken by decav, 
The clinging jessauiine slowly takes its way. 
My ruined home, 'neath vine-entangled walls! 
While on its roof the tottering chimney falls." 

Henry Worthen sings of home and school with a loyal 
love. 

Who does not remember Henry Rowe, son of Jolin 
Rowe, who is now a successful business man Jn Bo.ston? 
Henry was in the War of the Rebellion, and never was he 
known during those four long years of sanguinary warfare 
to turn his back to the enemy. It was in November, 
1903, that I made a call on Mr. and Mrs. Rowe at their 
pleasant home in Roxbury. The latch-string of their 
home hangs way out for any and all their Candia friends. 

It may seem singular to the readers of these Reminis- 
cences that I have not given individual mention of the 
Candia boys who went to the war which so fiercely raged 
from 1861 to 1865, and w^ho fought so bravely tluit the 
country might be saved from a divided Union. It has not 
at any time been my purpose to tell the story of the 
Candia boys in that hand-to-hand fight for the life of the 
nation. This has been done by the late Jacob Moore in 
his history of Candia, — so that it is enough for me, that 
I write in italics, that none were braver in the heat of 
battle during that terrible struggle for national life tlian 
were those who went out from Candia. 

In this connection it follows logically that I write of 
Jacob Moore, who loved his native town with such an af- 
fection that he labored patiently for years that he might 
put in durable form the history of the town. 

Jacob Moore was a unique and interesting character. 
He had an individuality all his own. He was a half-century 



336 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

ahead of his times in all that made up the intellectual and 
religious thought of his day. He subscribed to no narrow 
church creed, and neither did he mould or shape his indi- 
vidual opinions that they might be in harmony with the 
popular belief. Mr. Moore thought for himself, he spoke 
for himself, and he acted for himself. He moved in a sphere 
of intellectual and religious freedom. He never kept awake 
nights by reason of anything he may have heard preached 
from the pulpit on the hill fifty years ago. To him God 
was a God of love, all the while the orthodox world was 
preaching a God of inexorable justice. A great admirer 
of nature, Mr. Moore saw God in and about him on all 
sides. A lover of Emerson, he early became acquainted 
not only with his writings but with the philosopher him- 
self. Jacob Moore sought truth in all its varied forms. A 
disbeliever in a blind faith, yet accepting all truth founded 
on reason, he was ever ready to declare himself. He never 
wavered in any statement that was fundamental. He saw 
things clearly through his own eyes. Not always under- 
stood, yet Mr. Moore's religious belief was founded on 
God's revelation of himself as made manifest in nature. 
During a year's residence in Manchester, from 1863 to 
1864, I saw much of Mr. Moore and had many a serious 
and instructive interview with him upon matters of vital 
importance. Easy of approach, and ready in conversation, 
it was always a pleasure to listen to him, and in no in- 
stance did he fail of having something to say. Mr. Moore, 
while a thinker, still was a man of eminent leisure. He 
was never known to be in a hurry. He took life as it came 
to him, without making any fuss about it, and yet, along 
his lines of thought, Mr. Moore was a worker. A reader 
of extended range, he was always instructive. 




JOHN G. LANE 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 337 

Jacob Moore will be remembered evermore by the peo- 
ple of Candia, as one who was foremost in the world of 
intellect and in the world of religious thought. It is alto- 
gether to his credit that he was so unlike others. He was 
none other than himself, and everlastingly true was he to 
his own ideals. Jacob Moore counted one, miderlined and 
made emphatic by his own peculiar and supreme individu- 
ality. 

Then there is John G. Lane of Manchester, X. II., a 
Candia boy to whom already reference has been made, 
who has led a busy life. Mr. Lane has given twenty 
years of his earlier manhood in bringing into life the 
N. PI. S. S. Association, which involved much hard work. 
During those years Mr. Lane visited all the country from 
Atlanta, Georgia, to Toronto, — taking in St. Louis, Chi- 
cago, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Boston, Montreal, and other 
localities. Mr. Lane is now and has been for these later 
years the General Agent of the German- American Fire 
Insurance Co., with headquarters in Manchester — and so 
it goes — wherever one finds a Candia man, whether upon 
the farm at home, or in business or professional life, he 
usually finds a man who commands success. " Seest thou 
a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before 
kings ; he shall not stand before mean men.'' 



LVIII 

In hunting the garret this morning I came across a 
faded bhie cap with a button on its very tip, when I at 
once exclaimed, This must have belonged, oh, so many 
years ago, to the late George W. Dolber, for just such 
a one did he wear during all his schooldays in district 
No. 4. How pleasantly I remember George as the friend 
of the smaller boys in school ! Whenever they were mis- 
used by those of larger growth, George at that moment 
was by their side, and that to take their part. George 
was a lover of fair play, and was willing and ready, if need 
be, to fight for it. His boyhood was prophetic of his man- 
hood ; for as a man he was just in all his dealings, and 
trusted by all who knew him. Early in his married life 
he moved to Chester, where he had his home up to the 
time of his recent death. Mr. Dolber was honored by the 
people of his adopted town with many a public trust, and 
when he died both Candia and Chester were mourners at 
his grave. 

Making reference again to district No. 4 recalls to 
mind the late Harvey D. Philbrick, who was for so many 
years a member of the school committee in Candia. Mr. 
Philbrick was uniformly interested in all pertaining to 
education. Of a nervous, impulsive nature, he was up and 
doing all the while. He had but little sympathy with the 
laggard. During all his maturer years he was an essential 
factor in every interest having for its object the welfare 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 339 

and growth of the church at Caiulia ViUage. Mr. Pliil- 
brick had represented his adopted town in the state legis- 
lature, and had hekl other positions of public trust. A 
man he was, pleasing in all his ways, and social and agree- 
able to everybody. 

My brother Moses, the eldest born of the Palmer fam- 
ily, had grown to be a man when I was a pupil in school, 
so I knew but little of him as a boy in school, and yet I 
remember him as a lover of books'. He was the Shakespe- 
rean reader of the family, and could quote more from the 
Bard of Avon than all the rest of us Palmers put together, 
and he early made himself familiar with the writings of 
Confucius. Moses had in his make-up much of the argu- 
mentative. He a good deal delighted in controversy, and 
so it was that he would in later life make his way up to 
the lyceum on the hill, that he might take active part in 
its discussions. He was a lover of music — my ! how he 
would blow that bugle ! I seem to hear him now as he 
played " Fisher's Hornpipe " and '' The Devil's Dream." 

"To be, or not to be; that is the question: 
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 
And by opposing end them ? " 

This query of Hamlet was a favorite quotation with my 
brother Moses. The truth is, Moses had a retentive mem- 
ory, and he readily caught on to that which he read. 

While my home neighborhood has lost many of its 
older families, others have now and then come to take 
their places. I now have in mind Mr. and Mrs. Frank 
Stewart Allen, who occupy the place which A. Frank Pat- 
ten formerly owned. It may be that the reader of these 



340 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

Reminiscences thinks that their author does not suppose 
any one quite good enough or great enough to live in 
district No. 4, who was not born there and educated in 
her school. If any of you readers have gotten this idea 
into your heads from my premeditated frequent mention 
of " district No. 4," I pray you to rid yourself of it in the 
quickest possible time ; for I hasten to declare, without any 
mental reservation whatsoever, that Mr. and Mrs. Frank 
Stewart Allen add in a large way to the substantial worth 
and many attractions of my home neighborhood. 

And what a delightful site they have for a home! With 
that far-away picturesque range of mountains evermore 
in view, it is no wonder that Mrs. Allen breaks forth into 
occasional song. As she sees Monadnock lifting its dizzy 
heights up from behind the Uncanoonucs she must sing 
with the poet Whittier : — 

" I would I were a painter, for the sake 
Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, 
A fitting guide, with reverential tread, 
Into that mountain mystery. First a lake, 
Tinted with sunset ; next the wavy lines 
Of far receding hills ; and yet more far, 
Monadnock lifting from his night of pines 
His rosy forehead to the evening star." 

An ardent lover of nature as Mrs. Allen is, she must 
constantly feel in her home the spirit of both the painter 
and the poet hovering over hejp. 

Rightly have Mr. and Mrs. Allen christened their home 
" Mountain View Farm, " for within pleasing and inspir- 
ing vision they have the " everlasting mountains,'* and an 
intervening landscape that can only be fitly rendered in 
verse. 



m 




MOSES E. ROWE 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 341 

Mrs. Allen has served on the school board, and the 
town would have kept her in that official position indefi- 
nitely, had she been willing to have continued longer in 
that office. 

Mrs. Allen is the efficient secretary of Candia Home 
Week Association, and an active worker in the Church on 
the Hill. 

Yes, indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Allen are in every way 
worthy to be counted as children born and educated in 
district No. 4. May their kind be multiplied and added 
to the neighborhood where I so proudly register my name. 

And then there are the Underbills, in no way frac- 
tional in their make-up. They too add to the good name 
of school district No. 4. While Mr. Isaac Underbill is 
a member of the school committee, his wife, Mrs. M. J. 
Underbill, a lover of all that is intellectual and literary, 
is a writer whose pen glides easily and gracefully along. 
All Candia, and especially we whose homes are more or 
less remote from the home town, are under many obliga- 
tions to Mrs. Underbill for giving us each week in the 
Derry News the local items of interest from her part of 
the town. 

My love and blessing go out alike to the original four- 
teen school districts in Candia. My only regret is that 
each of those fourteen schoolhouses is not filled with a 
merry group of happy children, as they were in the days 
of long ago. 

I gladly make prominent mention of Colonel John 
Prescott, a man who in every position in life was nothing 
other than a gentleman. Colonel Prescott had in his day 
committed to his care every public trust of the town, and 
always did he prove himself a faithful and efficient ser- 



342 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

vant. I came to know intimately and well both Colonel 
and Mrs. Prescott, as I had my home with them for the 
greater part of two winters, while teaching school in their 
district, and it was such a home that it now comes back 
to me as one of my delightful memories. Mrs. Prescott, of 
generous, loving heart, left nothing undone for her family 
and friends — and she is still doing for those she loves. 
Her charities are many and widespread. I have an espe- 
cial regard and love for both Colonel and Mrs. Prescott. 

I should have made, earlier in this story of mine of 
Candia, prominent mention of F. W. Sargeant, one of the 
foremost business men of Manchester, N. H. Mr. Sar- 
geant, the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse W. Sargeant, 
is a man of affairs in every sense of the word. As author- 
ity on insurance, he has no superior in New England. Then 
there is Mr. Sargeant's cousin, Hervey M. Emerson, who 
is up to date in everything that has to do with an earnest, 
busy life. Mr. Emerson is one of the leading business 
men of Haverhill, Mass. Mr. Emerson has commanded 
and secured success through his untiring industry. Ha- 
verhill owes much to Candia for the men she has given her. 
Alvin D. Dudley has for years been one of the largest 
shoe manufacturers in that city. As a citizen of Haverhill 
Mr. Dudley takes high rank. Interested in everything 
that has for its object the good of his adopted city, he 
leaves nothing undone in all benevolent, enterprising 
work. 

Another Candia boy who has added to the good name 
of the town, is George B. Brown, whose home is at 2191 
Lakeview Avenue, Lowell, Mass. Mr. Brown has been 
for years actively interested in the public schools of his 
immediate locality, and done much for their advancement, 



REMINISCENCES OF CAN 1)1 A 343 

and he is also much interested in chureli work. Mr. I)ro\vi) 
is a man who is worth at all times and everywhere a hun- 
dred cents on the dollar. 

Added to her life-giving atmosphere, Candia has her 
doctors further to insure the health of the town, anion jr 
whom is A. J. Pitman, M. D. Dr. Pitman has been a 
resident of Candia for the past twelve years, during wliieli 
time he has put many a one on his feet again. A man of 
pleasing address, the doctor is in his genial personality a 
medicine, and a healing power. The truth is, that Candia 
takes the lead in each and all departments of business and 
professional life. I know that this statement is putting the 
fact in a superlative way, but remember I am writing of 
a town of the superlative degree of comparison. 



LIX 

In this concluding chapter of my story of Candia I must 
make prominent mention of Alfred Brown of Billerica, 
Mass., and Moses Rowe of Bedford, Mass., both Candia 
boys. It is but a few days ago that I visited these two 
Candians at their homes and enjoyed a most delightful 
hour with each. Alfred Brown will be remembered in 
Candia as the eldest son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan 
Brown, and Moses Rowe as the eldest son of the late Mr. 
and Mrs. Moses Rowe. Mr. Brown is hale and hearty and 
youthful in spirit at the age of eighty-two, and Mr, Rowe, 
of the same age, has a good deal of the boy left in him still. 
Mr. Rowe seldom or never fails to attend each year the 
meeting of the Candia Club. He is a lover of the town 
which gave him birth, and so is Mr. Brown. These 
veterans in years, God bless them, may they long tarry 
" this side " to keep us company. 

In writing these " Reminiscences of Candia " I have not 
for a moment forgotten our precious dead. It was on a 
recent Sunday morning in the month of May, under the 
fairest and most promising of skies, when all the air was 
made fragrant with the first bud and flower of the later 
springtime, that I visited the cemetery on the hill. Oh, 
what companionship one finds among the graves ! To me 
there are no lips so eloquent as those mute in death, and no 
voice so audible as the voice that is " still," and no touch 
so loving as that of the " vanished " hand. 



REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 345 

What would the workl do without its graves! It is in 
" God's acre " where one may hear whisperings from the 
" other side." There one may catch glimpses of the '' otlier 
shore " — for the two worlds lie side by side, so whether 
"here" or "there" we are still living on, in (iod's 
illimitable universe. Candia is rich in her precious dead, 
and rich, too, in her precious living. 

It is only a few weeks ago that I visited many of tlie 
homes in my native town, and in every instance was I 
greeted as a friend and brother. As I once more made my 
way along the old roads, taking in every familiar scene, I 
imagined myself a boy again. Indeed, I was a boy again, 
for the past so flooded my memory that then and there I 
was born anew. What a delight it is to live the old days 
all over ! And this is just what I have been doing in writ- 
insf these " Reminiscences of Candia." I have again made 
my way into your homes without " knocking," and you 
have greeted me as of yore, with a " Good-morning, A\'il- 
son," while I in turn have asked as in the olden time, 
" Have the boys and girls started for school, and are they 
to stay at noon ? " With memory stretching back to the 
golden hours of childhood, one can never grow old. A con- 
tinuous youth is the rightful heritage of all of us. 

<' Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight I 
Make me a child again just for to-night ! 
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years ! 
I am so weary of toil and of tears, — 
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain ! 
Take them, and give me my childhood again ! " 

And yet I am an optimist ; I believe that to-morrow 
will be better than to-day, and that the "hereafter" will 
be better than the " now." Thanking you, my readers, for 



346 REMINISCENCES OF CANDIA 

the patience with which you have listened to my story of 
Candia, and assuring you of the great pleasure I have had 
in renewing the acquaintance and friendship formed in the 
days of auld lang syne, it is eminently fitting that in clos- 
ing these Keminiscences I sing as I began : — 

" 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home ; 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
Which, sought through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

" An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain ; 
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ; 
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call, 
Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all." 

God bless Candia forevermore. 



Il 



AUG 19 1905. 



LIBHAHY Ul- uuiNoncoo 




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